SPIE

The first SPIE Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award has been given to Robert Alfano, distinguished professor of physics at City College of New York. The award will be presented annually to honor optical methods and device contributions that have significant promise to accelerate – or that have already facilitated – discoveries in biology or medicine. A longtime SPIE conference chairman and committee member as well as a member of the Photonics Spectra advisory board, Alfano was recognized for his pioneering work in biomedical optics and ultrafast laser spectroscopy. He co-discovered the supercontinuum white-light source and helped found the Biomedical Optics symposium at SPIE Photonics West.