2022 SPIE Awards Recognize Contributions to Biophotonics

The Awards Committee of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, today announced the recipients of its annual awards. Honoring transformative advancements in multiple areas — including medicine, astronomy, lithography, optical metrology, optical design, and community leadership — the awards recognize technical accomplishments as well as committed service to SPIE and support of its organizational mission.

Michael Berns, winner of the 2022 SPIE Gold Medal. Courtesy of SPIE.

SPIE Gold Medal: Michael Berns, in recognition of his work in bioengineering research and his distinguished career that brought together engineers, physicists, biologists, and physicians to collaborate on groundbreaking discoveries and innovations.

SPIE President’s Award: Tuan Vo-Dinh, in recognition of his outstanding and extensive role in SPIE conference leadership, in disparate technical areas, and for his mentorship of early investigators as well as peers.

SPIE Directors’ Award: Julie Bentley, in recognition of her outstanding service to the society in extraordinary ways, including authorship, course instruction, conference program leadership, committee membership, and service on the board of directors.

SPIE Mozi Award: Thomas W. Ebbesen, in recognition of his phenomenal contributions to the field of nano-optics, especially the extraordinary optical transmission through subwavelength hole arrays.

SPIE Britton Chance Award in Biomedical Optics: Bruce Tromberg, in recognition of his high-impact translational research and overall leadership in the development of biophotonic technologies for diagnostics and therapeutics.

SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award: Bert Müller, in recognition of his distinguished contributions to 2D and 3D imaging for the challenges of the 21st century, including cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, bioinspired dental repair, and incontinence treatment.

SPIE Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Award in Optical Design: Masato Shibuya, in recognition of his significant contributions to the development of optical design through the invention of phase-shift masks for photolithography, and for laying the foundations of imaging theory based on plane-wave expansions.

SPIE Harrison H. Barrett Award in Medical Imaging: Maryellen Giger, in recognition of her pioneering work in the fields of digital image formation, computer-aided diagnosis, radiomics, and radiogenomics.

SPIE Harold E. Edgerton Award in High-Speed Optics: Mona Jarrahi, in recognition of her pioneering contributions to plasmonic time-domain spectroscopy and imaging systems as well as their scientific and industrial applications.

SPIE Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics: Gabriel Popescu, in recognition of his groundbreaking contributions to holography and quantitative phase imaging for biomedical applications.

SPIE George W. Goddard Award in Space and Airborne Optics: Michelle Stephens, in recognition of her technical innovation, mentoring, and exceptional leadership in pursuit of space-based, fundamental measurements of Earth and the sun, while reducing technological barriers and promoting standards for the advancement of space and airborne optics.

SPIE G.G. Stokes Award in Optical Polarization: Alex Vitkin, in recognition of his extensive contributions to tissue polarimetry, including advanced methodology developments for sensitive and robust Stokes and Mueller measurements; polarimetric computational and analytical platforms; and biomedical applications including cardiology, regenerative medicine, glucometry, and breast-cancer margin assessment.

SPIE Chandra S. Vikram Award in Optical Metrology: Jürgen Czarske, in recognition of his important contributions to computational laser metrology with paradigm changes in fluid dynamics, inspection, aerospace, communication, and biomedicine.

SPIE Frits Zernike Award for Microlithography: Harry J. Levinson, in recognition of his outstanding achievements contributing to our fundamental understanding of advanced lithography process control, especially in the concepts of image-log-slope, mask defect printability, and thin-film optics optimization.

SPIE Diversity Outreach Award: Qaisar Abbas Naqvi, in recognition of his inspirational attitude and dedication to students, helping transform the lives of women and men from traditionally underrecognized segments of society by supporting their pursuit of higher education and research in optics and related fields.

SPIE Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award in Photonics: Shin-Tson Wu, in recognition of his seminal contributions to display and photonic device technologies that led to widespread applications.

SPIE Maiman Laser Award: Bill Krupke, in recognition of his scientific, technical, and community leadership, innovation, and numerous seminal results in laser science and technology.

SPIE Early Career Achievement Award — Academic Focus: Bhavin Shastri, in recognition of his pioneering efforts in the field of neuromorphic photonics and his contributions to interdisciplinary research across nanophotonics, unconventional computing, and silicon photonics that pushed the frontiers of machine learning.

SPIE Early Career Achievement Award — Industry/Government Focus: Lionel Clermont, in recognition of his significant achievements in the field of stray light control, particularly his work on the development of the ultrafast time-of-flight imaging characterization method.

SPIE Maria J. Yzuel Educator Award: Rajpal Sirohi, in recognition of his many years of service in the field of optics through leadership, capacity building, and outreach.

SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award: Ge Wang, in recognition of his pioneering contributions in x-ray and optical molecular tomography, including their coupling for biomedical applications.