Tuesday, 01 April, 12:30 - 14:00 PST (UTC-8:00)
Salon 9, Marriott Marquis Hotel
Join conference co-sponsors Optica, IEEE Photonics Society, and IEEE Communications Society for a special luncheon to recognize the award and honor recipients from each society. See below for a list of honorees. The event is open to anyone who purchases a ticket, but seating is limited. Tickets are USD 45.00 and can be purchased through the registration site. Ticket sales end on 31 March.
Support by:
Featured Presentations
John Tyndall Award
Presented annually since 1987, the award is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to optical-fiber technology that have met the test of time and are of proven benefit to science, technology, or society. The award honors the memory of John Tyndall, who made distinguished contributions to physics, particularly his demonstration of total internal reflection in a continuous stream of water. It is jointly presented by the IEEE Photonics Society and Optica and is funded by Corning Incorporated.
Masatoshi Suzuki
Chitose Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
For pioneering and seminal contributions to large capacity long-haul optical communication systems including integrated light sources, dispersion-managed soliton, WDM submarine cable systems, and spatial multiplexing
Suzuki joined KDD (currently KDDI), Japan, in 1984, serving in various roles including Executive Vice President. He is currently the Vice President and a professor at Chitose Institute of Science and Technology, and a visiting professor at Waseda University. He demonstrated outstanding achievements in terrestrial optical networks, such as nationwide all-optical networks based on GMPLS-controlled optical cross-connects, high-capacity WDM PON, and over 10Tbit/s high-capacity radio over fiber for beyond 5G mobile networks. His current research includes high-speed free-space communications for non-terrestrial networks using high-power PCSELs and Silicon photonics for optical computing. He has co-authored five books, more than 420 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, and produced 120 registered International Patents. He is a Fellow of Optica, IEEE, and a Fellow and Honorary member of IEICE. He has received several awards for his outstanding work.
IEEE Photonics Award
Established in 2002, the award is presented for outstanding achievements in photonics. Recipients are selected by the Technical Field Awards Council of the IEEE Awards Board.
David Richardson
Microsoft, UK
For contributions to fiber lasers, fiber telecommunications, and hollow-core optical fibers
Richardson is currently a Partner Researcher at Microsoft. He was previously at the Southampton University Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) and co-founded SPI Lasers and Lumenisity. Best known for his work on optical fibers and their applications, he has played a leading role in improving the data-carrying capacity of optical communication networks and has also extended the performance limits of fiber lasers, contributing to their commercial success and making them strong competitors to conventional lasers. He has co-authored more than 550 peer-reviewed journal papers and produced more than 20 patents. He is a Fellow of IEEE, Optica, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. He has received several awards for his outstanding work, including the John Tyndall Award.
C.E.K. Mees Medal
Established in 1961, the medal recognizes an original use of optics across multiple fields. It honors Optica charter member C. E. K. Mees, who contributed preeminently to the development of scientific photography.
Keren Bergman
Columbia University, USA
For pioneering research on optical interconnects and photonic architectures for high-performance computing
Bergman has been at Columbia University since 2002, where she is currently the Charles Batchelor Professor of Electrical Engineering and serves as the Faculty Director of the Columbia Nano Initiative. As director of Columbia’s Lightwave Research Laboratory, Bergman leads multiple research programs on optical interconnection networks for advanced computing systems, data centers, optical packet-switched routers, and nanophotonic networks-on-chip for chip multiprocessors. She is developing a new class of nanoscale photonic interconnect technologies that seamlessly move data from on-chip networks, across memory and large computing systems with extreme energy efficiency. These future platforms, driven by nanophotonic-enabled interconnectivity, and the enormous bandwidth advantage of dense wavelength division multiplexing, will fundamentally transform the computation-communications architecture, to create systems able to meet explosive information demands at all scales. She is a Fellow of Optica and IEEE and has received several awards for her work, including the C.E.K. Mees Medal.
2025 Society Fellows
Optica Fellows
Rodrigo Amezcua Correa
University of Central Florida, CREOL, USA
For contributions to the development of hollow core fibers, fibers for space division multiplexing, and high power amplifying fibers
Thomas Baehr-Jones
Tesselmax, USA
For seminal and groundbreaking academic and commercial contributions to silicon photonics
Adonis Bogris
University of West Attica, Greece
For contributions to the study of all-optical signal processing techniques and their applications in optical communications, sensing, security, and computing
Diego A. R. Dalvit
Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
For outstanding theoretical contributions in electromagnetic quantum fluctuations and quantum optics in metamaterials, plasmonic surfaces, and other nanostructured materials
Lan Fu
Australian National University, Australia
For outstanding contributions to semiconductor materials, optoelectronic devices, and nanotechnology, and for broad leadership of the profession
Amirhossein Ghazisaeidi
Nokia Bell Labs, France
For theoretical and experimental contributions advancing the capacity of optical communications with coherent detection
Werner Klaus
Photonic Network Laboratory, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan
For significant contributions to free-space, quantum, and space-division-multiplexed fiber-optic communications systems
Son Thai Le
Nubis Communications, USA
For exceptional contributions to optical communications systems research and product development
Chengkuo Lee
National University of Singapore, Singapore
For seminal contributions to optical MEMS/NEMS enabled tunable metamaterials and mid-infrared nanophotonics
Yuanqiu Luo
Futurewei Technologies Inc, USA
For significant contributions to the research and development of optical access networks, particularly the standardization of broadband optical access technologies
Vitaly Mikhailov
OFS Laboratories, USA
For technical expertise in development and commercial application of emerging technologies, including hollow core optical fiber and bismuth-doped O-band amplification
Willie W. Ng
The Aerospace Corporation, USA
For pioneering contributions and leadership in microwave photonics including true time delay, photonic analog-to-digital converters, and radio frequency signal processing
Marek R. Ogiela
AGH University of Krakow, Poland
For pioneering contributions in the creation of AI cognitive vision systems for visual pattern understanding and visual cryptography
Wei Shi
Université Laval, Canada
For outstanding contributions to silicon photonic integrated circuits for high-capacity optical communications
Dora van Veen
Nokia Bell Labs, USA
For outstanding and sustained research into the feasibility and commercialization of ultra-broadband technologies for low-cost passive optical networks
Lieven Verslegers
Google LLC, USA
For seminal achievements and leadership in the research, development, and commercialization of nanophotonics and silicon photonics technologies
Da-Wei Wang
Zhejiang University, China
For outstanding contributions in quantum control of atom-photon interactions, particularly for quantum simulations in superradiance lattices and topological quantum photonics
Fan Zhang
Peking University, China
For outstanding contributions to fiber nonlinearities and high-speed fiber-optic communications
IEEE Communications Society Fellows
Vittorio Curri
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
For contributions to physical layer aware multi-band open optical networks
Zhensheng Jia
CableLabs, USA
For contributions to optical communication systems and broadband access networks
IEEE Photonics Society Fellows
Vittorio Curri
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
For contributions to physical layer aware multi-band open optical networks
Zhensheng Jia
CableLabs, USA
For contributions to optical communication systems and broadband access networks
Malin Harindu Premaratne
Monash University, Australia
For contributions to theory, modelling, and simulations of optical quantum devices
Jin-wei Shi
National Central University, Taiwan
For contributions to high-speed photodetectors and VCSELs for optics fiber communications.
Award and Prize Honorees
IEEE/Optica Journal of Lightwave Technology (JLT) Best Paper Award
This award is presented by the Journal's Coordinating and Steering Committees to the top cited original paper published in JLT in 2022, as determined by a variety of citation metrics and databases. Copies of the winning paper are available at OFC and in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
Coherent Free-Space Optical Communications: Opportunities and Challenges
JLT Vol. 40, Issue 12 (2022) DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2022.3164736
Authors:
Fernando P. Guiomar, Marco A. Fernandes, José Leonardo Nascimento, Vera Rodrigues, Paulo P. Monteiro, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Tingye Li Innovation Prize
Established in 2013, the prize honors the global impact Tingye Li made on the field of optics and photonics. It is presented for an accepted paper that has demonstrated innovative ideas. The prize is administered by the Optica Foundation and endowed by Alliance Fiber Optic Products, Inc., AT&T, Optica, IEEE Photonics Society, IEEE Communications Society, Thorlabs, Inc, the Li Family, and supporters of the Tingye Li Memorial Fund.
Masanori Nakamura
NTT, Japan
Jane M. Simmons Memorial Speakership
Established in 2022 to honor the legacy of Jane M. Simmons and her high-impact contributions to optical network architecture, design, and planning, the prize recognizes an invited speaker at OFC. The speakership is administered by the Optica Foundation and endowed by the Jane M. Simmons Family.
Lena Wosinska
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
For her numerous contributions to optical networking research and for mentoring and inspiring a generation of leaders in optical networking
Corning Women in Optical Communications Scholarship
Established in 2019, these scholarships recognize three outstanding women graduate students studying optical communications and networking and support their participation in OFC. The scholarship is administered by the Optica Foundation and endowed by Corning Incorporated.
Rosalyn Koscica, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Ankita Sharma, University of Toronto, Canada
Gamze Gul, Northwestern University, USA
Corning Outstanding Student Paper Prize
Established in 2007, the paper competition recognizes innovation, research excellence, and presentation abilities in optical communications. All students submitting their papers during the regular "call for papers" process for OFC are eligible for the competition. Finalists present their work to the OFC Program and General Chairs in a private session. The prize is administered by the Optica Foundation and endowed by Corning Incorporated.
Finalists:
Xiaomin Liu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Adrian Schwarzenberger, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), SilOriX, Germany
Vahid Sharif, Institute of Smart Cities, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain
Jinwei Su, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Vincent van Vliet, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Xin YANG, Politecnico di Milano, Italy