2025 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Winner
Get Involved
Optica Names Stephen A. Boppart the 2025 Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Recipient
Optica is pleased to announce that Stephen A. Boppart, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA, has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award. Boppart is honored 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.
Boppart is a Professor and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He is also a full-time faculty member at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory is focused on developing novel optical biomedical diagnostic and imaging technologies and translating them into clinical applications.
Boppart has co-founded four start-up companies to commercialize and disseminate his optical technologies for biomedical imaging. He established and served as Director of Imaging at Illinois, a university-wide program to integrate imaging science, technology, and applications across multiple modalities and fields, and is currently Director of the GSK Center for Optical Molecular Imaging. Boppart has been a strong advocate for the integration of engineering, technology, and medicine to advance human health and our healthcare systems. He played an active role in the initiation and growth of the new engineering-based Carle Illinois College of Medicine at UIUC, and served as Executive Associate Dean and Chief Diversity Officer. Currently he serves as the Director for the university’s Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute, and as the Illinois Co-Chair of the Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance for Technology-Based Healthcare.
He has been widely recognized for his work, having received the Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award, the International Hans Sigrist Prize in the field of Diagnostic Laser Medicine, the SPIE Biophotonics Innovator Award, and was elected as a member of the National Academy of Inventors. He is a Fellow of Optica, AAAS, IEEE, SPIE, AIMBE, and BMES.
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, 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.
