Gabriel Popescu
About Optica
In Memoriam: Gabriel Popescu, 1973 - 2022
16 June 2022
Gabriel Popescu, Optica Fellow (2015) and Senior Member (2010) passed away on 16 June 2022 in Prundu, Romania. He was most known for directing the Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory (QLI Lab) at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, developing biophotonics methods for application in biomedicine and quantitative histopathology to detect breast cancer and label-free tissue scanners for colorectal cancer screening.
Popescu graduated from the University of Bucharest in 1995 and 1996 with a Bachelor’s and Master's of Science in Physics. He then left his home in Romania in 1997 to pursue a PhD at the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL) at the University of Central Florida. When he graduated in 2002, he went on to continue his training with Michael Feld at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a postdoctoral associate. In August 2007, he joined the University of Illinois where he directed the QLI Lab.
In 2009, Popescu founded Phi Optics Inc., which commercializes quantitative phase imaging technology developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Their instruments target interest areas where live-cell imaging is the main method of observation: fundamental cell science, disease identification, drug discovery, embryo and stem cell manipulation. In 2014, the company launched its first sale the same year and in 2015, a second-generation instrument was launched to pave the way for its entry into the clinical market.
At Optica, Popescu served as Associate Editor of Optics Express and Biomedical Optics Express from 2010 until 2015 and 2016, respectively. Popescu was also a member of the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award Committee and from 2016 through 2017 as Chair.
Popescu authored 170 journal publications, 210 conference presentations, had 38 patents and gave 220 invited, keynote and plenary talks. His interdisciplinary research was supported and driven by grant funding from several agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Grainger Foundation and Agilent Technologies.
He is survived by his wife Catherine Best who is also in bioengineering at UIUC, his daughter Sophia, his son Sorin and his mother, Maria.
Optica and the scientific community mourn his loss.
