UCLA Engineering Professor Aydogan Ozcan Elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been elected a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Ozcan, who holds the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation at UCLA Samueli, was elected to the academy’s technical and environmental sciences cohort for his major contributions to mobile sensing, computational imaging, microscopy and medical diagnostics. He also has a faculty appointment at the Bioengineering Department and serves as an associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

One of the pioneers in computational optics, Ozcan brings high-resolution imaging and sensing techniques to mobile phones and other lower-cost portable devices, eliminating the need for bulky and expensive equipment. He has developed a series of innovative microscopy techniques that use algorithms to replace traditional optical lenses for rapid high-volume, high-resolution imaging in biomedical sensing and diagnostics. Ozcan has also incorporated artificial intelligence into advanced optics and microscopy tools, with broad applications in biomedicine and health care aimed at increasing access to advanced measurements in resource-limited areas. 

Among Ozcan’s many awards and recognitions are the Joseph Fraunhofer Award and Robert M. Burley Prize for optical engineering from Optica, the Dennis Gabor Award from international optics and photonics society SPIE and the ICO Prize from the International Commission for Optics (ICO). A member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Ozcan is also a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, SPIE, Optica, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Physical Society and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Ozcan holds more than 85 issued patents and has co-founded three startup companies based on technologies spun out of his research lab. For the past six consecutive years, he has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate, which compiles an annual list of researchers who have published multiple papers that ranked in the top 1% by peer citations during the previous decade. 

A member of the UCLA faculty since 2007, Ozcan previously held a research faculty position at Harvard Medical School and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, where he earned his doctorate.

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Austria, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts recognizes approximately 2,000 leading scholars and practitioners for achievements in science, the arts and governance. Its members include 38 Nobel Prize winners, living and deceased, along with many recipients of other international awards.