UCLA Engineer Receives 2023 SPIE Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics

Aydogan Ozcan

UCLA Samueli

Jan 24, 2023

UCLA Samueli Newsroom

The international professional society for optics and photonics technology SPIE has selected Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, as the recipient of its 2023 Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics.

Ozcan, who also holds UCLA’s Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation and leads the Bio- and Nano-Photonics Laboratory, was recognized for his “seminal contributions to holography, lens-free holographic microscopy, and computational imaging that democratize advanced measurement systems.”

A pioneer in developing lens-free, on-chip microscopy and holography systems, Ozcan utilizes computational optics for the development of next-generation imaging, sensing and diagnostics tools. Optical technologies with compact and cost-effective interfaces developed by his lab, some of which have been integrated into smartphones, include fluorescence, brightfield and holographic microscopes, imaging flow cytometers, immunochemical diagnostic test readers, bacteria/pathogen sensors, blood analyzers, allergen detectors and air quality monitors. 

At UCLA, Ozcan also holds a faculty appointment in bioengineering and is the associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute. He has received numerous international awards and recognition for his groundbreaking work in optics and photonics, including the 2022 the Joseph Fraunhofer Award and the Robert M. Burley Prize from the optical professional society Optica. 

Ozcan is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), as well as a lifetime fellow of Optica and SPIE. He has received SPIE’s Early Career Achievement Award in 2011 and its inaugural Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award in 2013. 

Established in 1983, the SPIE’s Dennis Gabor Award was named after the British-Hungarian physicist and Nobel Laureate who invented holography.

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