International Dennis Gabor Award

This article is about the NOVOFER Foundation award. For other uses, see Dennis Gabor Award (disambiguation).

The International Dennis Gabor Award was established by the NOVOFER Foundation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences to recognize scientific achievements with practical applications. It was named after Nobel Prize laureate Dennis Gabor. The award acknowledged individuals whose work demonstrated significant impact in applied science and innovation.

Each award included a 160 cm-diameter pure silver medal with a hologram of Dennis Gabor’s portrait, a charter of honor, and a monetary prize. ^{[1] [2]} It was typically granted to both a Hungarian and a non-Hungarian researcher. It was awarded approximately every three years, depending on the selection process and candidate pool. The award aimed to identify researchers with a similarly successful career path as Dennis Gabor. Due to the award's prestige and the broad research area covered, selection of the awardee was highly competitive, particularly among non-Hungarian candidates. The award ceremony took place at the Hungarian Parliament. It was awarded from 1993 until 2010.

After 2010, the NOVOFER organization continued to recognize achievements through similarly themed honors such as the “Dennis Gabor in Memoriam Award” and the “Dennis Gabor Lifetime Achievement Award”. ^{[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]}

The Dennis Gabor Award presented annually by SPIE (the International Society for Optics and Photonics) honors contributions in diffractive wavefront technologies, including advancements in holography and metrology. ^[13]

Recipients

2023

• Aydogan Ozcan (UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering) was recognized for his “seminal contributions to holography, lens-free holographic microscopy, and computational imaging” that have helped democratize advanced measurement systems. ^[14]

2019

• Min Gu (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia) was recognized for his innovative research in nanoscale information optics, particularly in the unification of 3D Fourier optics with nonlinear microscopy to push imaging resolution beyond classical limits. ^[15]

2011

• Wolfgang Osten, SPIE Fellow (University of Stuttgart, Germany) received the award for his pioneering work in applying holography‐based techniques to measurements spanning large-scale to nano‐scale structures. ^[16]

2010 ^[17]

• Vladimír Székely, born in Hungary in 1941. He contributed to semiconductor technology. ^[18]
• Mitsuo Takeda (University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan) was honored for his seminal contributions—including the invention of the Fourier transform method for fringe analysis and the development of coherence holography. ^[19]

2009 ^[20]

• Warren Chan, Chinese-born American researcher. Chan contributed to applying nanotechnology in biology and medicine to treat diseases such as cancer. He is also a professor at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
• Dombi Péter, physicist, born in Szeged, Hungary in 1976. He contributed to optics, such as ultra-short pulses and high intensity laser technology.

2006 ^[21]

• Nico F. Declercq, physicist, born in Belgium in 1975. He contributed to ultrasonics of biased piezoelectric anisotropic crystals and diffraction of ultrasonic waves by periodic structures and the use of optics for these investigations. He later worked on the acoustics of Chichen Itza and Epidaurus. Furthermore, he is a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Tech Lorraine, Metz, France.
• Czirók András, physicist, born in Miskolc, Hungary in 1973. He works at University of Kansas Medical Center. He contributed to biological systems.

2003 ^[22]

• Pavel Alexandrovich Belov, physicist, born in Saint Petersburg in the Soviet Union in 1977. He contributed to photonic crystals.
• Gali Ádám, engineer and physicist, born in Budapest, Hungary in 1973. He contributed to Atomic Physics, with a focus on point-defects in semiconductors.

2000 ^[23]

• Georg Pretzler, physicist and a professor at the University of Munich, born in Graz, Austria in 1965. He contributed to quantum optics, rontgen-holography and high power laser and is a professor at the Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf.
• Baranyi Péter, electrical engineer, born in Kalocsa, Hungary in 1970. He graduated from Budapest University of Technology and contributed to Telecommunications and Telematics. He also worked at the University of Hong Kong, the University of New South Wales and the University of Tokyo.

1998 ^[24]

• Sándor Kürti was born in Hungary in 1947. He is famous for contributions to mathematics.

1996 ^[25]

• Chris J. Jacobsen, researcher, born in the USA and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA. He contributed to holographic X-ray imaging of soft materials and received a Presidential Faculty Fellowship.
• Szipőcs Róbert, electrical engineer, born in Hungary. He studied at Budapest University of Technology and contributed to chipped mirrors and the production of femtosecond light pulses.

1995 ^[26]

• Ernő Rubik, born in Hungary in 1944 and is known for his invention of Rubik's Cube.

1993 ^[27]

• Kristina M. Johnson, electrical engineer, born in Evansville, USA, in 1957. She was on the faculty of University of Colorado at Boulder at the time of the award. She received her PhD from Stanford University. Later on, she was the undersecretary for Energy at the United States Department of Energy, provost, and senior vice president for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins University and dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. She contributed to opto-electronic computing and holography.
• Horváth Gábor, physicist, born in Kiskunhalas, Hungary, in 1963. He contributed to physiological and photoreceptor optics, optical problems in biology, and polarization vision in animals.

See also

• List of engineering awards
• List of physics awards

References

1. "Call for 2003 International Dennis Gabor Award" (PDF). sigmaxi.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-10-31.
2. "Az Alapítványról" [About the Foundation]. Gábor Dénes Díj (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2019-09-10.
3. "The 2011 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
4. "The 2012 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
5. "The 2013 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
6. "The 2014 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
7. "The 2015 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
8. "The 2016 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
9. "The 2018 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
10. "The 2019 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
11. "The 2020 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
12. "The 2021 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
13. "Dennis Gabor Award". SPIE. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
14. "Aydogan Ozcan: The 2023 SPIE Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics". spie.org. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
15. "Dennis Gabor Award in Diffractive Optics: Min Gu". spie.org. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
16. "SPIE Awards". spie.org. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
17. "The 2010 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
18. "Mentor Graphics Dr. Vladimír Székely Receives Dennis Gabor Award". Mentor Graphics. 2015-09-14. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
19. "Mitsuo Takeda honored with Dennis Gabor Award". spie.org. Retrieved 2025-02-17.
20. "The 2009 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
21. "The 2006 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
22. "The 2003 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
23. "The 2000 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
24. "The 1998 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
25. "The 1996 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
26. "The 1995 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.
27. "The 1993 Dennis Gabor Awards". Novofer. Retrieved Feb 23, 2022.