Robert Alfano Is First Winner Of Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award

Robert Alfano, Distinguished Professor of Physics at City College of New York, has been awarded the first SPIE Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award, in recognition of his pioneering work in biomedical optics and ultrafast laser spectroscopy. The announcement was made today by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

Among Alfano's many achievements, he was co-discoverer of the supercontinuum white light source, the SPIE award citation noted.

A longtime SPIE conference chair and committee member and a prolific author, Alfano was instrumental in the founding of the Biomedical Optics (BiOS) symposium at SPIE Photonics West. He has published more than 700 papers, and has 108 patents and more than 11,000 citations. He has served as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biomedical Optics since the founding of the journal in 1996.

The Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award will be presented annually, to honor contributions to optical methods and devices that have significant promise to accelerate or have already facilitated new discoveries in biology or medicine.

Alfano will receive the award on 23 January during the BiOS Hot Topics session at SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco.

About SPIE
SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, was founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. Serving more than 180,000 constituents from 168 countries, the Society advances emerging technologies through interdisciplinary information exchange, continuing education, publications, patent precedent and career and professional growth. SPIE annually organizes and sponsors approximately 25 major technical forums, exhibitions and education programs in North America, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific, and supports scholarships, grants and other education programs around the world. For more information, visit http://spie.org/.

SOURCE: SPIE