The SPIE 2026 Annual Awards shine a light on the people and ideas shaping the future of optics and photonics. This year, the international society recognized 22 scientists, engineers, and educators whose work spans medical imaging, advanced light sources, lithography, space optics, and inclusive education.
The awards celebrate technical breakthroughs and highlight leadership, mentorship, and the translation of research into real-world impact. That’s a lot of ground covered, honestly.
Celebrating Excellence Across Optics and Photonics
SPIE’s Annual Awards are among the most respected honors in the field. They reflect decades of progress in optical science and engineering.
The 2026 recipients come from a broad cross-section of disciplines. You’ll find everything from artificial intelligence in healthcare to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and ultrafast lasers represented.
SPIE Gold Medal and Leadership Awards
Maryellen Giger received the prestigious SPIE Gold Medal for her pioneering work in computer-aided diagnosis and AI-driven medical image analysis. She helped move quantitative imaging and machine learning from research labs into clinical practice, improving diagnostic accuracy and mentoring generations of scientists and clinicians along the way.
The SPIE President’s Award went to James Sydor for exceptional leadership, philanthropy, and sustained contributions to optical fabrication and optics education. His career shows how technical excellence and service to the scientific community can go hand in hand.
Advancing Scientific Communication and Light-Based Technologies
Scientific progress depends on discovery, but it also needs effective dissemination and collaboration. Several 2026 awards highlight leadership in shaping how optics research gets shared and applied.
Journals, Light Sources, and Clinical Translation
Xiao-Cong (Larry) Yuan and Anatoly Zayats earned the SPIE Directors’ Award for founding and leading the journal Advanced Photonics. It’s become a top-tier platform for high-impact research across the field.
The Mozi Award went to Hui Cao for groundbreaking innovations in novel light sources. Her work includes applications in imaging, sensing, and even random number generation, which is becoming a big deal in secure communications.
Jürgen Popp received the Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award for translating Raman spectroscopy into real-time, label-free clinical diagnostics. That’s a big step toward bringing photonic techniques directly to patient care.
Imaging, Lithography, and Laser Innovation
Imaging and manufacturing technologies drive societal impact, from healthcare diagnostics to semiconductor production. The field keeps moving forward.
From Medical Imaging to EUV Lithography
Several awards honored transformative advances in imaging and fabrication:
There was also recognition for Shin-Tson Wu for liquid crystal polarization gratings that enable next-generation AR/VR displays. Siddharth Ramachandran advanced structured light in optical fibers, and Peter Delfyett pushed ultrafast semiconductor lasers forward.
Diversity, Education, and Expanding Impact
SPIE’s 2026 awards don’t just focus on technology—they emphasize the human side of science, too. Education, inclusion, and outreach all matter here.
Building an Inclusive and Forward-Looking Community
Kimani Toussaint earned recognition for leading diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Bahaa Saleh also received an award, this time for lifelong contributions to optics education and pedagogy.
Other awards celebrated achievements in space optics, with Lee Feinberg taking the spotlight there. In biomedical optics, honorees included Irving Bigio, Sos Agaian, Ching-Cherng Sun, Alex Walsh, and Amirhossein Ghods.
SPIE has the full list of Society Awards and recipients right on their site. It’s a pretty fascinating look at the folks shaping the future of optics and photonics, honestly.
Here is the source article for this story: SPIE announces its 2026 Society awards