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Awards

IEEE Photonics Society Engineering Achievement Award

Recognizes 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.

Nominate a Colleague Today!

Nomination Period: Feb 1 – April 5 

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) 

About the Award

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.

Introducing Our Award Honorees

We are proud to recognize and celebrate honorees of the IEEE Photonics Society Engineering Achievement Award.

Our Most Recent Honoree

Seeds Photo IEEE EAA 2023

Alwyn J. Seeds, 2023

For pioneering developments in microwave photonic devices and systems, leading to successful commercialization of wireless-over-fiber for 5G+ cellular communication.

Alwyn Seeds holds the B.Sc, Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees of the University College, London.  After working as a Staff Member at Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as Lecturer in Telecommunications at Queen Mary College, University of London, he joined University College London in 1986, where he is currently Professor of Opto-electronics, Head of the Photonics Group and Director of the EPSRC National Dark Fibre Facility.  He has published more than 500 papers on microwave and opto-electronic devices and their systems applications, of which some 100 have been invited.

Professor Seeds is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), an IEEE Life Fellow (USA) and has served as Vice-President for Technical Affairs of the IEEE Photonics Society (USA). He co-founded Zinwave, a manufacturer of wireless over fibre systems, now a unit of Wilson Electronics LLC. There are now over 850 Zinwave systems installed in 26 countries worldwide. Alwyn Seeds was awarded the Gabor Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 2012 and the Distinguished Educator Award of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society in 2018.

View All Award Winners

Year Award Winner Citation
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.