Established in 2008 to honor Emil Wolf for his many contributions to science and Optica, this competition recognizes the innovation, research and presentation excellence of students presenting their work during Frontiers in Optics (FiO). 

Application Information

How To Apply

Submit a paper to FiO+LS and opt into the competition. Learn more on the conference website.

Important Dates

The submitting author must opt-in to the competition during the regular paper submission process and follow all of the instructions provided on the submission site.
Paper Submission Deadline: 20 June 2024

Applicant Requirements

• Must be an undergraduate or graduate student.
• Must have a paper submitted and accepted during the regular call for papers process for FIO. (Note: Postdeadline Papers are not part of this competition).
• Must present the accepted paper orally during the conference.

Application Requirements

Opt-in to the competition during the regular submissions process.

Past Recipients

• Xilin Yang, University of California Los Angeles, United States (2024)
• Lukas Fürst, Graz University of Technology, Austria (2024)
• Jonas Lammers, Paderborn University, Germany (2024)
• Hande Ibili, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2024)
• Shuman Sun, University of Virginia, United States (2024)
• Isabella Aguilera, The University of Arizona, United States (2024)
• Yuhang Li, University of California Los Angeles, United States (2024)
• Zhi Ling, Georgia Institute of Technology (2023)
• Yuzhu Li, University of California, Los Angeles (2023)
• Yishu Zhou, Yale University (2023)
• Xuhao Wei, Univeristy of Southampton (2023)
• Oguz Celik, Stanford University (2023)
• Jerermy Thurston, University of Colorado Boulder (2023)
• Zijun Gao, Georgia Institute of Technology (2023)
• Cecile Skoryna Kline, University of Bristol, United Kingdom (2022)
• Karanveer Singh, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany (2022)
• Haiwen Wang, Stanford University, USA (2022)
• Qianwan Yang, Boston University, USA (2022)
• Ashwin Boddeti, Purdue, USA (2021)
• Daniel Dahl, University of Queensland, Australia (2021)
• Myeong-ho Choi, Inha University, Republic of Korea (2021)
• Hayk Gevorgyan, Boston University, USA (2021)
• Guan Gui, University of Colorado, USA (2021)
• Yi Luo, UCLA, USA (2021)
• Sultan Abdul Wadood, University of Rochester, USA (2021)
• Murat Yessenov, CREOL, University of Central Florida, USA (2020)
• Ohad Lib, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2020)
• Kovendhan Vijayan, Chalmers University of Technology, India (2020)
• Caterina Vigliar, University of Bristol, UK (2020)
• Alex Matlock, Boston University, USA (2020)
• Yujia Xue, Boston University, USA (2020)
• Cecilia Zaza, CIBION-CONICET, Argentina (2019)
• Chenglong You, Louisiana State University, United States (2019)
• Tristan A. Wilkinson, West Virginia University, United States (2019)
• Sally I. Elhenawy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States (2019)
• Alexander Lochbaum, ETH Zurich, Switzerland (2019)
• Phuc Nguyen, University of Michigan, United States (2019)
• Adedayo Muideen Sanni, Wayne State University, United States (2019)
• Chan Kyaw, Howard University, United States (2019)
• Erwan Lucas, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (2018)
• James Gaynor, University of Washington, USA (2018)
• Jingyi Yang, Baylor University, USA (2018)
• Julie Chang, Stanford University, USA (2018)
• Lorenzo De Angelis, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands (2018)
• Muhammad Faris Shanin Shahidan, The University of Melbourne, Australia (2018)
• Muhammad Veli, University of California, Los Angeles, USA (2018)
• Robert Pettit, University of Rochester, USA (2018)
• Lorenzo De Angelis, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands (2017)
• Zhean Shen, University of Central Florida, USA (2017)
• Alexander Lind, University of Colorado Boulder, USA (2017)
• Yu Shiozawa, The University of Tokyo, Japan (2017)
• David Miller, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA (2017)
• Seth Smith-Dryden, University of Central Florida, USA (2017)
• Amanda Bares, Cornell University, USA (2016)
• Wenzhe Li, Clemson University, USA (2016)
• Nihal Jhajj, University of Maryland, College Park, USA (2016)
• Samantha Nowierski, Northwestern University, USA (2016)
• Aleks Klimas, George Washington University, Stony Brook University, USA (2016)
• Mengjie Yu, Cornell University, Columbia University, USA (2016)
• Rick Leijssen, FOM Institute AMOLF, Netherlands (2016)
• Claire Autebert, Laboratory MPQ, France (2015)
• Dan MacDougall, Dalhousie University, Canada (2015)
• Dennis Gardner, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA (2015)
• Michael Wood, Ohio State University, USA (2015)
• Rebecca Holmes, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA (2015)
• Haomin Yao, University of Rochester, USA (2015)
• Daniel Maser, NIST, USA (2015)
• Daniel Bachman, University of Alberta, Canada (2014)
• Hisashi Ogawa, The University of Tokyo, Japan (2014)
• Wonjue Lee, Yonsei University, Republic of Korea (2014)
• Rory Speirs, University of Melbourne, Australia (2014)
• Chien-Hung Lu, Princeton University, USA (2014)
• Maria Vinas, Instituto De Optica (CSIC), Spain (2014)
• Giovanni Milione, CUNY City College, USA (2014)
• Yuhong Yao, University of Rochester, USA (2014)
• Shao-wei Chou, Max-Planck-Institut fur Quantenoptik, Germany (2013)
• Lane Martin, University of Central Florida, USA (2013)
• Itai Epstein, Tel Aviv University, Israel (2013)
• Mohammad Mirhosseini, University of Rochester, USA (2013)
• Kyu Hyun Kim, University of Michigan, USA (2013)
• Ori Henderson-Sapir, University of Adelaide, Australia (2013)
• Martin Lavery, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom (2013)
• Drake Cannan, San Francisco State University, USA (2012)
• Mehul Malik, University of Rochester, USA (2012)
• Jong-ryul Choi, Yonsei University, South Korea (2012)
• Robin Sharma, University of Rochester, USA (2012)
• Wei Jiang, University of Rochester, USA (2012)
• David Wu, University of Southampton, United Kingdom (2012)
• Lan Liu, University of California, San Diego, USA (2012)
• Ria Becker, Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena, Germany (2011)
• Sylvanus Lee, Boston University, USA (2011)
• Alexander Buck, Max-Planck-Institut fur Quantenoptik, Germany (2011)
• Thomas Kohlgraf-Owens, University of Central Florida, USA (2011)
• Arash Joushaghani, University of Toronto, Canada (2011)
• Lei Tian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (2011)
• Fiona Kenny, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland (2011)
• Gregorius Berkhout, Leiden University, Netherlands (2010)
• Thomas Matthews, Duke University, USA (2010)
• Ori Katz, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel (2010)
• Gilad Lerman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2010)
• Richard Smith, University of Rochester, USA (2010)
• Christopher Barsi, Princeton University, USA (2009)
• Volker Sorger, University of California, Berkeley, USA (2009)
• Amber Beckley, University of Rochester, USA (2009)
• Neil Terry, Duke University, USA (2009)
• Daniel Hermann, Max-Planck-Institut fur Quantenoptik, USA (2009)
• Xin Wei, Indiana University, USA (2009)
• Henrique Pires, Leiden University, Netherlands (2009)

Contributors

This program is sponsored by Optics Communications, which is published by Elsevier. Additional support has also been provided by Physical Optics Corporation, the University of Rochester Physics Department, the Institute of Optics and individual contributors, including G. Michael Morris, Grace and Robert Klonoski, Daniel James, Peter Knight, M. Suhail Zubairy, Kisik Kim and Elizabeth A. Rogan.

About the Endowment

The prize is dedicated to luminary and pioneer Emil Wolf.

Selection Committee

The recipient is selected by the FiO+LS conference chairs.