The CLEO/QELS Plenary Session and Awards Ceremony was held Wednesday morning. About 800 attendees crowded into the Convention Center's Ballroom to honor their colleagues who were receiving awards and fellowships.

The IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award, given for exceptional and outstanding technical contributions that have had a major impact in the fields of quantum electronics and lasers and electro-optics, was presented to Linn F. Mollenauer. He received the award for his many years of experimental study of solutions and other nonlinear effects in optical fiber pulse propagation and their application to ultra-distance transmission. Although he couldn't make the conference, The Optical Society of America presented David Buckingham, from the University of Cambridge, with the Charles H. Townes Award. Buckingham was given the award for his many theoretical and experimental contributions to electro-optics and magneto-optics, including the invention and application of a direct method for measuring molecular electric quadrupole moments.

The IEEE Lasers and Electro-optics Society presented seven fellowships. The recipients were Gary D. Boyd, from Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies (retired); Fred M. Dickey, from Sandia National Laboratories; James D. Franson, from the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University; Takayoshi Kobayashi, from the University of Tokyo; Jerry R. Meyer, from the Naval Research Laboratory; Mikhail A. Vorontsov, from the Army Research Laboratory; and Xi-Cheng Zhang, from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.