2011 OSA AWARDS
OSA proudly announces the winners of its 2011 awards and medals. OSA has chosen to honor these distinguished individuals because they have exhibited dedication, ingenuity and perseverance in attaining the highest level of scientific achievement
in their chosen fields. The OSA Board of Directors approved the awards at its meeting in February. Most of these awards will
be presented at Frontiers in Optics, the 95th OSA Annual Meeting, in San Jose, Calif., U.S.A., in October 2011.
Frederic Ives Medal/
Jarus W. Quinn Prize
The highest award of the Society,
the Ives Medal recognizes overall
distinction in optics
To Ivan P. Kaminow, University
of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
For pioneering research in high-speed modulators, ridge waveguide
lasers, and wavelength-division-multiplexed optical networks, each
of which has had a profound impact
on modern communication systems
During his 42-year career Ivan
Kaminow developed several key
aspects of lightwave communica-
tion systems. At Bell Labs, he
did seminal studies on electro-
optic modulators and materials,
Raman scattering in ferroelec-
trics, integrated optics (includ-
ing titanium-diffused lithium
niobate modulators), semicon-
ductor lasers (including the
distributed Bragg reflector laser,
ridge waveguide InGa AsP laser
and multifrequency laser), bire-
fringent optical fibers, and wave
division multiplexing (WDM)
lightwave networks. Later, as
head of the Photonic Networks
and Components Research
Department, Kaminow led
research on WDM com-
ponents (including
the erbium-doped
fiber amplifier,
arrayed wave-
guide grating
router and the fiber Fabry-Perot
resonator), and on WDM local
and wide area networks. Early
in his career he did research on
microwave antenna arrays at
Hughes Aircraft Company.
After retiring from Bell Labs
in 1996, Kaminow served as
IEEE Congressional Fellow on
the staffs of the House Science
Committee and the Congressional Research Service (Science
Policy Research Division) in
the Library of Congress. From
1997 to 1999, he returned to
Lucent Bell Labs as a part-time
consultant. He also established
Kaminow Lightwave Technology
to provide consulting services to
technology companies as well as
patent and litigation law firms. In
1999 he served as senior science
advisor to OSA in Washington.
Currently, Kaminow is an
adjunct professor of electrical
engineering at the University of
California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) where he has been teaching
since 2004. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton, UC
Berkeley, Columbia, the University of Tokyo, and Kwangju
University (Korea). Kaminow
received a B.S.E.E from Union
College, an M.S.E from the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) and an A.M. and Ph.D.
from Harvard University. He
was a Hughes Fellow at Hughes
Aircraft Co. and UCLA (1952-
1954) and a Bell Labs Fellow at
Harvard (1956-1960).
Kaminow has published over
240 papers, received 47 patents,
and has written or coedited 5
books. His most recent work
Optical Fiber Telecommunications V A&B was coedited with
Tingye Li and Alan Willner
(Academic Press/Elsevier, 2008).
Kaminow is a Life Fellow of
IEEE, and Fellow of APS and
OSA. He is the recipient of the
Bell Labs Distinguished Member
of Technical Staff Award, IEEE
Quantum Electronics Award,
OSA Charles Townes Award,
IEEE/LEOS/OSA John Tyndall
Award, IEEE Third Millennium
Medal, Union College Alumni
Gold Medal, and IEEE Photonics Award. He is a member of the
National Academy of Engineering, a Diplomate of the American
Board of Laser Surgery, and a
Fellow of the New York Academy
of Medicine.
Esther Hoffman
Beller Medal
In recognition of outstanding
contributions to optical science
and engineering education
To Stephen M. Pompea,
National Optical Astronomy
Observatory (NOAO), U.S.A.
For sustained optics outreach
activities to schools and colleges,
authorship of hands-on optics
curriculum books, and for
leadership to realize and distribute
Galileoscopes, a low-cost
telescope kit for kids
Stephen Pompea’s main research
interests are observational
astronomy, the optical proper-
ties of surfaces, astronomical
instrumentation and science
education. He has taught sci-
ence in public schools, worked
on astronomical instrumen-
tation at Martin Marietta
and served as an instrument
scientist for the NASA Hubble
Space Telescope’s Near-infrared
Camera and Multi-Object
Spectrometer and the Gemini
eight-meter telescopes projects.
Since 2002, he has led national
science education efforts from
NOAO headquarters in Tuc-
son, Ariz., U.S.A. With Rick
Fienberg, Doug Arion, Tom
Smith and many others, Pom-
pea developed and produced
the Galileoscope telescope kit
for students.
