Optica Names 22 Recipients for 2025 Awards and Medals
About Optica
13 February 2025
Optica Names 22 Recipients for 2025 Awards and Medals
WASHINGTON — Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is pleased to announce the recipients of several of its 2025 awards and medals, including David A. B. Miller, the recipient of the Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize, Optica’s highest honor.
“David Miller is a highly innovative scientist, who has made multiple fundamental contributions to optics,” said Jim Kafka 2025 Optica President. “He is also a talented educator and dedicated volunteer, and I have had the distinct pleasure of learning from him during many of my visits to Stanford. It is a pleasure to congratulate him on this well-deserved honor."
Optica’s awards and medals highlight outstanding technical, research, engineering, educational, business, leadership, and service accomplishments.
"On behalf of the Optica Board, I congratulate the 2025 Optica award and medal recipients,” said Jim Kafka. “Their outstanding work is driving our field forward. I would also like to thank those who nominated candidates, submitted references, and served on selection committees—your service and support in recognizing members of our community is greatly appreciated."
The 2025 recipients are:
Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize
David A. B. Miller, Stanford University, USA
For fundamental scientific and engineering research contributions spanning multiple areas, including optics in digital systems, fundamentals of optics and waves, and complex and controllable photonic circuits
Esther Hoffman Beller Medal
Peter E. Andersen, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, Denmark and Stefan Andersson Engels, Tyndall National Institute and University College Cork, Ireland
In recognition of their vision, drive and innovation in organizing the International Graduate Biophotonics Summer School, which has become a cornerstone of biophotonics PhD education
Max Born Award
A. Douglas Stone, Yale University, USA
For pioneering concepts of coherent perfect absorption and reflectionless scattering modes, comprising a general theory of reflectionless scattering in optics, and for seminal contributions to laser theory of complex microcavities
Stephen D. Fantone Distinguished Service Award
Thomas M. Baer, Stanford University, USA
For over three decades of dedicated service and visionary leadership to Optica, including broadening Optica’s topical focus to include Biomedical Optics and expanding Optica’s global footprint and recognition through public policy programs such as the National Photonics Initiative and the Global Environmental Measurement and Monitoring Initiative
Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award
Stephen A. Boppart, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
For pioneering research contributions, leadership, and entrepreneurship in developing and translating novel label-free biophotonics and biomedical optical imaging technologies for clinical applications and biological discovery
Paul F. Forman Team Engineering Excellence Award
The CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre team, UK
For sustained delivery of a truly open-source silicon photonics foundry that follows the ethos of flexibility, collaboration, and openness to support researchers around the world
Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize
Juerg Leuthold, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
For pioneering plasmonics based devices and in particular developing broadband modulators and detectors with highest bandwidths
Nick Holonyak Jr. Award
Zetian Mi, University of Michigan, USA
For outstanding contributions to the engineering of wide energy gap nanostructures for light emission and energy generation applications
Robert E. Hopkins Leadership Award
Winnie Ye, Carleton University, Canada
For significantly advancing the optics and photonics community through her leadership in organizing international conferences, promoting diversity, and mentoring the next generation of photonics professionals and leaders
Edwin Land Medal (co-presented with the Society for Imaging Science and Technology)
Xi-Cheng Zhang, University of Rochester, USA
For pioneering advancements in terahertz photonics, transformative technologies impacting diverse industries, entrepreneurial success in commercializing THz tools globally, and dedication to mentoring future scientific leaders
Emmett N. Leith Medal
Kehar Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India
For extensive contributions to diverse aspects of optical encoding for security and cryptography, digital holography, correlators and optical storage systems
Ellis R. Lippincott Award (co-presented with the Coblentz Society and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy)
Yukihiro Ozaki, Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan
For a lifetime of research accomplishments and breakthroughs across broad areas of Raman, resonance Raman, near-infrared, surface-enhanced, vacuum ultraviolet, 2-dimensional correlation (2D-COS) spectroscopies and chemometrics
Adolph Lomb Medal
Peter McMahon, Cornell University, USA
For demonstrating new forms of optical-physics-based computing machines, that surpass the standard von Neumann computers that we are all familiar with
Leonard Mandel Quantum Optics Award
James Franson, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
For pioneering work on nonlocal interferometry and the use of nonclassical states of light for quantum information processing
C.E.K. Mees Medal
Keren Bergman, Columbia University, USA
For pioneering research on optical interconnects and photonic architectures for high-performance computing
William F. Meggers Award
John Doyle, Harvard University, USA
For developing pioneering methods enabling a broad range of spectroscopic studies, including cryogenic cooling of large molecules and radicals, novel probes of chirality, slow molecular beams, and laser cooling of large molecules
David Richardson Medal
Marija Strojnik (Scholl), Optical Research, Mexico
For developing seminal optical testing techniques, including vectorial shearing interferometer and rotational shearing interferometer in support of commercial applications, and for academic leadership in optical engineering
Kevin P. Thompson Optical Design Innovator Award
Rob Devlin, Metalenz Inc, USA
For critical contributions to foundational optical metasurface design, pioneering leadership to commercialize metasurface optics, and product development of the first polarization sensor for consumer markets, leveraging on semiconductor foundries for mass production of metaoptics
Edgar D. Tillyer Award
Susana Marcos, University of Rochester, New York, USA
For contributions to our basic understanding of the effect of the eye's optics on vision including the passage of light through the cornea and lens and into the photoreceptors where vision begins
Charles Hard Townes Medal
Kerry John Vahala, California Institute of Technology, USA
For pioneering contributions to the development and application of optical microresonators and nonlinear optical oscillators
R. W. Wood Prize
Fiorenzo Omenetto, Silklab, Tufts University, USA
For pioneering silk-based optics, photonics, and optoelectronics with uses across multiple disciplines at the interface of biology and technology including applications in sustainability, global health, and food safety
About Optica
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. Discover more at: Optica.org
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