OSA Names Recipients of 2003 Prizes

Each year, the Optical Society of America presents awards to recognize individuals who have made noteworthy contributions to the science of light. This year’s awards and medals will be formally presented next month at the society’s annual meeting in Tucson, Arizona.

The Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Endowment, the society’s most prestigious honor, will be bestowed on Herbert Walther, professor emeritus at the University of Munich and at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany. Walther is being honored for his work in quantum optics, “including the development of the micromaser and the demonstration of Wigner crystallization of laser-cooled ions.”

Ajoy Ghatak will receive the Esther Hoffman Beller Medal for his “outstanding contributions to optics education” and for “leadership of a major fiber optics and optoelectronics research and training program in a developing nation,” according to the citation. Ghatak is a professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

The OSA Leadership Award/New Focus Prize will go to Charles Vest, president of MIT. The society is commending Vest for “leadership in setting the national agenda for higher education and university research, including its impact on optics.”

The Adolph Lomb Medal recipient this year is Alexei Sokolov, assistant professor of physics at Texas A&M University. Sokolov merited the medal for his “work on the prediction and demonstration of single-cycle optical pulse generation by molecular modulation.”

Christopher Dainty will be honored with the C. E. K. Mees Medal for his “contributions to the understanding and application of speckle phenomena” and for his “leadership in the international optics community.” Dainty is the Science Foundation Ireland Professor of Experimental Physics at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Roland Shack, professor emeritus of optical sciences at the University of Arizona, will receive the David Richardson Medal for his “numerous contributions to optical engineering, including the invention of the Shack–Hartmann sensor and the Shack cube interferometer.”

OSA is recognizing George Stegeman with the R. W. Wood Prize for “pioneering nonlinear integrated optics through seminal experiments and continuing leadership.” Stegeman is the Cobb Family Chair in Optical Sciences and Engineering at the University of Central Florida’s School of Optics.

The work of Weilin Pan on “measurements of atmospheric temperatures above the North and South Poles using a novel lidar system” wins her OSA’s Allen Prize. Pan is a research engineer in the Center for Geospace Studies at SRI International in Menlo Park, California.

“Outstanding theoretical contributions to quantum optics through the understanding of quantum fluctuations, especially in the open systems of resonance fluorescence and cavity QED” garner the Max Born Award for Howard Carmichael, Dan Walls Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

The Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize will go to Yoshiki Ichioka, president of Nara National College of Technology and emeritus professor at Osaka University in Japan. He is being cited for his “notable contributions to information processing and optical computing.”

The Nick Holonyak Jr Award will be presented to Joe Campbell, the Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. The society is commending Campbell for his “extensive efforts in the development of high-speed, low-noise avalanche photodiodes.”

Shaul Mukamel, Chancellor Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, will receive the Ellis R. Lippincott Award for the “development and application of formalism for the design and understanding of nonlinear optical experiments on molecular vibrations.” This award is given jointly by OSA, the Coblentz Society, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy.

The William F. Meggers Award will go this year to Daniel Grischkowsky, Regents Professor and the Bellmon Professor of Optoelectronics at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. OSA praised his “seminal contributions to the development and application of THz time-domain spectroscopy.”