Nominators must complete a nominee submission by April 5th each year with the following:
Statement of a specific technical accomplishment or contribution(s) that qualify Nominee for Award, including the impact of the work, as well as other related accomplishments; publications, patents, etc. that demonstrate the most significant impact. (Maximum of three pages)
Proposed Award Citation: (Word Count: 20)
Nominee’s curriculum vita (Maximum of three pages)
Endorsements: Three letters of endorsement are required. You may enter the endorsers name and email to send an automatically generated email request, or if you have received the endorsement, you can upload directly to the system. (One page limit)
The IEEE Photonics Society Engineering Achievement Award is given to recognize an exceptional engineering contribution which has had a significant impact on the development of laser or electro-optic technology or the commercial application of technology within the past 10 years.
Presented: An individual or to a group for a single contribution of significant work in the field
Nomination Period: February to April
Scope: To recognize an exceptional engineering contribution which has had significant recent impact on the development of laser or electro-optic technology or the commercial application of technology.
Prize: A Bronze Medallion, A Certificate and Honorarium
Basis for Judging: In the evaluation process, the following criteria are considered: Evidence of the significant impact of the cited contribution within the past 10 years.
We are proud to recognize and celebrate honorees of the IEEE Photonics Society Engineering Achievement Award.
For contributions to advanced semiconductor growth and processing technologies for photonic nanodevices.
Xiuling Li is the Temple Foundation Endowed Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and Director of the Microelectronics Research Center. She earned her B.S. from Peking University and Ph.D. from UCLA, followed by postdoctoral positions at Caltech and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and industry experience at Coherent, Inc. (formerly EpiWorks). Before joining UT Austin in 2021, she was the Donald Biggar Willett Professor in Engineering at UIUC and interim director of the Nick Holonyak Jr. Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. Her research focuses on semiconductor materials and devices, with contributions ranging from highly anisotropic Metal-Assisted Chemical Etching (MacEtch), to MOCVD-grown nanowire transistors, and self-rolled-up membrane (S-RuM) technology. She holds over 25 patents and has authored more than 180 journal papers and delivered over 150 invited talks globally. She is a Fellow of IEEE, APS, Optica, NAI, and AAAS, and a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, and the IEEE Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology. Dr. Li also serves on multiple professional committees and has been Deputy Editor of Applied Physics Letters since 2015.
| Year | Award Winner | Citation |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Pavel Cheben | For pioneering contributions to silicon photonic waveguide devices, including the invention of metamaterial waveguides and advancing sub-wavelength integrated photonics technology. |
| 2023 | Alwyn J. Seeds | For pioneering developments in microwave photonic devices and systems, leading to successful commercialization of wireless-over-fiber for 5G+ cellular communication. |
| 2022 | Ulrich L. Rohde | For outstanding engineering achievement in the field of optoelectronic signal generation and optical measurement equipment for next-generation intelligent optical networks. |
| 2021 | José Capmany | For pioneering and sustained contributions to integrated microwave and programmable photonics including the invention of Field Programmable Photonic Gate Arrays. |
| 2020 | George C. Papen | For contributions to optical systems, especially optical switching in data center networks. |
| 2019 |
Holger Schmidt
Aaron Hawkins |
For the invention and development of optofluidics waveguides and their applications, in particular, commercialization for biomedical diagnostics. |
| 2018 | Dalma Novak | For the creation and development of breakthrough technologies for the microwave photonics field, in particular for fiber-radio communication systems. |
| 2017 | David V. Plant | For pioneering contributions to optical communications technologies spanning multiple length scales including DSP algorithms for direct detection and coherent systems. |
| 2016 | Keren Bergman | For pioneering contributions to optical interconnection networks and photonic-enabled architectures that advance communicaitons and computing systems. |
| 2015 | Chennupati Jagadish | For pioneering and sustained contributions to compound semiconductor quantum well, quantum dot and nanowire optoelectronic devices and their integration. |
| 2014 | Yong-Hee Lee | For pioneering research on the photonic crystal nanolaser and the proton-implant vertical cavity surface emitting laser. |
| 2013 | Polina Bayvel | For seminal advances in optical networks, including efficient wavelength routing architectures and electronic DSP algorithms to mitigate degrading effects. |
| 2012 |
Gregory Belenky
Jerry Meyer
Igor Vurgaftman |
For exceptional contributions to the technology of mid-wave GaSb-based infrared lasers. |
| 2011 | Alan Willner | For technical advances in optical fiber communications technologies that have enabled significant improvements in the performance and reliability of wavelength-division-multiplexed systems. |
| 2010 | Wood-Hi Cheng | For design, development and commercialization compact solid-state laser modules. |
| 2009 | Jose A. R. Salcedo | In recognition of outstanding technical and leadership contributions to pulsed fiber lasers, in particular all-fiber ring laser architectures, and of his pioneering efforts aimed at developing, promoting and commercializing this technology in Portugal – and later in international markets. |
| 2008 | Kent D. Choquette | For development of the monolithic selectively oxidized vertical cavity surface emitting laser. |
| 2007 |
Andreas Umbach
Gunter Unterborsch
Dirk Trommer |
For the research, development and fabrication of advanced ultra-high speed photodetectors. |
| 2006 |
John H. Marsh
A.Catrina Bryce |
For extensive development and commercialization of quantum well intermixing for photonic devices. |
| 2005 |
Chung-En Zah
Rajaram Bhat |
For pioneering work on the AlGaInAs/InP strained quantum well lasers for uncooled applications. |
| 2004 | Marina M. Meliga | For pioneering work on the development of semiconductor lasers and for the design and development of uncooled DFB lasers for datacom applications. |
| 2003 | Dennis Deppe | For sustained contributions and innovations in the area of oxide confined and quantum dot vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. |
| 2002 | Timothy Day | For contributions to the development and commercialization of external cavity tunable diode lasers for telecommunications, spectroscopy, metrology, and biotechnology. |
| 2000 |
Pallab Bhattacharya
Sethumadhavan Chandrasekhar
Leda Lunardi |
For design and development of high-performance 1.55um opto-electronic integrated photoreceivers. |
| 1999 | Frederick Kish, Jr. | For seminal contributions to high performance light-emitting diode technology and production. |
| 1998 | David F. Welch | For the design, development and commercialization of high power diffraction limited semiconductor lasers. |
| 1997 |
Corrado Dragone
Meint K. Smit |
For the conception, design, and reduction to practice of novel optical waveguide array devices, and their application to WDM networks. |
| 1996 |
Isamu Akasaki
Hiroshi Amano
Shuji Nakamura |
For the technology breakthrough of making p-type gallium nitride, demonstrating very bright blue light emitting diodes, and developing a commercial LED product which is expected to have major impact in the display and other optoelectronic industries. |
| 1995 |
P. Daniel Dapkus
Russell D. Dupuis |
For pioneering work on the engineering of MOCVD technology for semiconductor lasers. |
| 1994 | Donald R. Scifres | For the development and commercialization of high power semiconductor lasers and their applications. |
| 1993 |
Won T. Tsang
Hauro Tanaka |
For the development and manufacturing of AlGaAs diode lasers for compact disc applications by MBE. |
| 1992 | Peter K. Runge | For key contributions to the development of undersea lightwave systems. |
| 1991 | Michiharu Nakamura | For pioneering work and commercialization of high-performance narrow-linewidth semiconductor lasers for optical communications. |