2012 Optics Prize Awarded

ICTP and the International Commission for Optics (ICO) have announced that the winner of the 2012 ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo Award is Selçuk Aktürk of the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Turkey.

Dr. Aktürk earned the award "for his valuable work in the field of ultra-short optical pulses and in particular for his contributions to the development of ultra-short pulse characterization techniques and their applications to ultra-fast nonlinear optics".

Dr. Aktürk is the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science and Letters at ITU, as well as an Associate Professor in the university's Engineering Physics Department. He received the award at a special ceremony held during the annual Winter College on Optics, which focusses this year on nano-optics and plasmonics. To mark the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the death of the prize's namesake, Gallien Denardo's wife, Chiara Bernardoni, presented the award to Dr. Aktürk.

The ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo Award is given to young researchers (under 40) from developing countries who are active in optics research and have contributed to the promotion of optics research activities in their own or another developing country. The annual award includes a cash stipend from ICO as well as full financial support from ICTP for the winner to attend an additional training event at the Centre and give a seminar on his or her work.

This year's Winter College on Optics is sponsored by ICTP, ICO, the Optical Society of America (OSA), The International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), the European Optical Society (EOS), the Societa Italiana di Ottica e Fotonica (SIOF), the US National Academy of Science (NAS), the Photonics Society (IEEE), and the International Society on Optics Within Life Sciences (OWLS).