2026 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Winner
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Optica Names YongKeun Park the 2026 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Recipient
Optica is pleased to announce that YongKeun Park, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea, has been selected as the 2026 recipient of the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award. Park is honored for pioneering the development of 3D quantitative phase imaging techniques and AI-enabled applications in biology and medicine, transforming label-free biophotonics into a powerful tool for fundamental discoveries and clinical translation.
Park is a Professor in the Department of Physics at KAIST and serves as the Director of the Virtual 3D Biology Center. He is also the co-founder of Tomocube and TheWaveTalk. Park received his PhD in medical engineering and medical physics from the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He is widely recognized for pioneering holotomography, a 3D quantitative phase imaging technology, and for advancing its integration with artificial intelligence for applications in biology, medicine, and materials science.
His research has resulted in over 230 peer-reviewed publications, including works in Nature Photonics, Nature Methods, Nature Cell Biology, and Nature Materials, accumulating more than 20,000 citations with an h-index of 80. He has delivered more than 100 invited lectures worldwide, including plenary talks at Photonics West and the European Conferences on Biomedical Optics.
Park is a Fellow of Optica and SPIE. His additional honors including the Asan Medical Award, the Medal of Honor in Science and Technology from the President of the Republic of Korea, and the Microscopy Today Innovation Award.
Established in 2012, the Feld Biophotonics Award recognizes innovative and influential contributions to the field of biophotonics, regardless of career stage. The award encompasses all areas of biophotonics including fundamental optics discoveries in biology, development of new theoretical frameworks and novel instrumentation and clinical translational research for biomedicine. It honors Michael Feld for his fundamental contributions to applications of photonics technologies to solving biomedical problems, and is endowed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Coherent Inc., David Feld, Ramachandra Dasari, Adam Wax, Kyungwon An, Robert Gold, Charles Holbrow, Firooz Partovi, Manoharan Ramasamy, Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Guillermo Tearney.
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Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is the society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the field. Founded in 1916, it is the leading organization for scientists, engineers, business professionals, students and others interested in the science of light. Optica's renowned publications, meetings, online resources and in-person activities fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate scientific, technical and educational achievement.
