2022 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Winner

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Optica Names Valentina Emiliani the 2022 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Recipient

Optica (formerly OSA) is pleased to announce Valentina Emiliani, Vision Institute, CNRS, France, has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award. Emiliani is honored for pioneering research on wavefront engineering in neurophotonics, which enabled the selective control of individual neurons in the intact brain using light and optogenetics, and initiated the era of all-optical brain control.

Valentina Emiliani received her PhD from La Sapienza University, Italy. After completing postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Born Institute, Germany, and the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy, Italy, she joined the Institute Jacques Monod, France. In 2005 she formed the Wavefront Engineering Microscopy group at Paris Descartes University, France. She moved with her team to the Vision Institute, where she is a CNRS research director and directs the Photonics Department.

Valentina and her group have pioneered the use of wavefront engineering for neuroscience. Precisely, they have combined approaches such as computer-generated holography, generalized phase contrast and temporal focusing with optogenetics to control neuronal activity with unprecedented spatiotemporal precision. Their findings paved the way to optogenetic manipulation of intact brain circuits with single cell resolution: an essential methodology to perturb and activate neural circuits for interrogating brain function.

She is a recipient of the Award "Coups d'élan pour la recherche française" from the Bettencourt-Shueller Foundation, the European Young Investigator Award, the Axa Chair, the European Research Council Advanced Grant, the "Médaille d'argent" from CNRS, and the Maxime Dahan Prize.

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.

About Optica

Optica (formerly OSA), 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.