And the winners are...

23 Apr 2009

SPIE reveals its 2009 award-winners for contributions to optics.

The great and the good of the optics community are recognized this week as SPIE, the professional body, announces its annual awards for outstanding individual and team accomplishments and meritorious service to the society.

• SPIE's highest honour, the Gold Medal of the Society, goes to Richard Hoover, astrobiology group leader at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, US. The award recognizes Hoover's work in X-ray and EUV optics, ranging from microscopes to telescopes. His full-disk images of the sun in the X-ray and EUV wavelengths are among his many advances in the field.

• Roland Winston of the University of California-Merced, US, gains the A E Conrady Award for achievements in non-imaging optics, as well as in advancing its applications in solar and illumination technology.

• Rajpal Sirohi, vice-chancellor of Amity University Rajasthan, India, is the 2009 winner of the Dennis Gabor award. The award acknowledges Sirohi's accomplishments in numerous aspects of holography, speckle metrology, interferometry and confocal microscopy.

• Neil Gehrels of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, US, wins the George W Goddard award in recognition of his contributions in opening the gamma-ray spectral window as its own astronomical discipline.

• The Frits Zernike Award is given for outstanding accomplishments in microlithographic technology, especially those furthering the development of semiconductor lithographic imaging solutions. This year's winner is Chris Mack, a faculty member of the University of Texas, US. The award recognizes Mack's contributions to the development and dissemination of the Prolith suite of lithography simulation software.

• For the invention and refinement of telescope coronagraph masks that aid planet detection directly around bright stars, Marc Kuchner, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, US, receives the Early Career Achievement award.

• Fenna Hanes, senior director of the New England Board of Higher Education, US, is the 2009 Educator Award winner. The award is for Hanes' leadership in several National Science Foundation education programmes and for fostering the growth of optics in secondary schools and colleges throughout the US.

• James Grote at the US Air Force Research Laboratory is the 2009 recipient of the Technology Achievement award. The award acknowledges Grote's contributions in photonics engineering and accomplishments in the field of biotronics (biopolymer-based photonic and electronic materials and devices).

Award nominations can be made up to 1 October of any given year and are considered active for three years from the date of submission. For instructions on how to nominate visit http://spie.org/x1164.xml.