Orazio Svelto is now Professor Emeritus at Politecnico di Milano. He is the author of the book Principles of Lasers (Springer, New York, 5th edition, 2010) which has been translated in several languages. He is a Fellow of IEEE and OSA. He has been awarded the Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physical Society (1998), the Italgas Prize (2000), the gold medal of the Italian President of Republic for deserving citizen in the Science, Culture and Art (2005), the Charles Hard Townes award of the Optical Society (2005), and the Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics (2011).