Nominators must complete a nominee submission by August 10th with the following:
The John Tyndall Award is presented annually to a single individual who has made outstanding contributions in any area of optical-fiber technology, including optical fibers themselves, the optical components used in fiber systems, as well as transmission systems and networks using fibers. The contributions which the award recognizes should have met the test of time and should have been of proven benefit to science, technology, or society.
Jointly sponsored by the IEEE Photonics Society and Optica, the award is endowed by Corning Inc.
Presented to: An Individual
Scope: to recognize outstanding contributions in any area of optical-fiber technology, including optical fibers themselves, the optical components used in fiber systems, as well as transmission systems and networks using fibers.
Prize: A specially commissioned Steuben crystal sculpture, a scroll, and an honorarium.
Basis for Judging: In the evaluation process, the following criteria are considered: the contributions which the award recognizes should have met the test of time and should have been of proven benefit to science, technology, or society. The contributions may be experimental or theoretical.
We are proud to recognize and celebrate honorees of the John Tyndall Award. First established in 1987 to honor the memory of John Tyndall who made distinguished contributions to physics, particularly his demonstration of total internal reflection in a continuous stream of water, our honorees as a group set the standard for pioneering or continuing contributions to fiber optics technology.
For ground-breaking contributions to silicon photonics, notably through pioneering research, advocacy and the establishment of a widely accessible foundry platform.
Professor Graham Reed, FRS, FREng, FIET, FSPIE, FOSA, FEOS, FAPS, CEng, is Professor of Silicon Photonics and Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton, UK. He graduated in Electronic and Electrical Engineering with first class honours in 1983, and with a PhD in Integrated Photonics in 1987. In April 2012, he and his group joined Southampton from the University of Surrey, where he was Professor of Optoelectronics, and was Chair of the Department of Electronic Engineering from 2006 to 2012.
Reed is a one of the earliest pioneers of the field of Silicon Photonic acknowledged and established the Silicon Photonics Research Group at the University of Surrey in 1989. The Group is now approximately 75 people, have stayed at the forefront of the field for more than 35 years, have provided a series of world leading results since its inception, and are particularly well known for their work on silicon optical modulators. For example, the Group produced the first published design of an optical modulator with a bandwidth exceeding 1 GHz, proposed the pre-emphasis method of driving silicon modulators, and were the first to publish the design of a depletion mode optical modulator, which is now the industry standard device. In 2011 the team were responsible for the first all-silicon optical modulator operating at 40Gb/s with a high extinction ratio (10dB), as well as a second modulator design (also operating at 40Gb/s) that operates close to polarization independence. They also reported the first device operating at 50Gb/s. Recently they have been pioneering Mid Infra-Red Silicon Photonics, mid-index photonics platforms, programmable photonics, and computing applications of silicon photonics, and in 2020 reported an integrated silicon modulator-driver combination operating at 100Gbps OOK without digital signal processing (DSP). In 2024 they reported a 308Gb/s MZI based modulator integrated with an electronic driver, and in 2020 reported a similar 200Gbd device, suggesting a 400Gb/s all-silicon solution without the need for energy hungry DSP may be within reach.
Reed has been a consultant to numerous companies in the field of Silicon Photonics, including Intel (USA), Bookham Technology (UK), Kotura (USA), Rockley Photonics (UK/USA), Optic2Connect (Singapore), and CompoundTek (Singapore).
He is a regular invited and contributing author to the major Silicon Photonics conferences around the world. He has served on numerous international conference committees and has also chaired many others. He is currently a member of 6 international conference committees and has chaired/co-chaired major international conferences. He has published almost 700 journal and conference papers, in the field of Silicon Photonics, including 192 invited/keynote/plenary talks. He was also the lead author of the first Silicon Photonics textbook “Silicon Photonics: An introduction”, published in 2004.
He is the founder of the UK Silicon Photonics Foundry CORNERSTONE, originally established to serve the UK academic community, but now has a majority of industry users and customers from 25 countries. He is also a founder of Silicon Photonics LiDAR company Pointcloud (USA and Switzerland).
In 2013 he was the recipient of the IET Crompton Medal for Achievement in Energy, for his work on Silicon Photonics, and in 2014 he was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award. In 2017 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, in 2019 he was awarded an industry prize (PIC award) for his contribution to the Silicon Photonics field, and in 2020 he was elected as a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), and the European Optical Society (EOS). In 2023 he was awarded the SPIE Gold Medal, and the Sir Frank Whittle Medal (Royal Academy of Engineering). In 2025 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and the American Physical Society.
He currently leads the £5.8M “MISSION” programme, a UK research programme funded by the EPSRC, as well as the £1.5M CORNERSTONE 2 project (also EPSRC funded), the £16M UKRI Innovation Knowledge Centre “The CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre”. He is a co-investigator of EPSRC project “Towards a revolution in Optical Communications” (£1M), and European photonics pilot line project PIXEUROPE (€10M to UK). His career research income exceeds £85M (approx. $114 Million US).
| Year | Award Winner | Citation |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Masatoshi Suzuki | For pioneering and seminal contributions to large capacity long-haul optical communication systems including integrated light sources, dispersion-managed soliton, WDM submarine cable systems, and spatial multiplexing. | 2024 | David Richardson | For pioneering contributions to the development of optical fibers and their applications and commercialization in fiber lasers and optical communications. |
| 2023 | Ming-Jun Li | For seminal contributions to advances in optical fiber technology. |
| 2022 | Meint Smit | For leadership in building a photonic integration ecosystem, and pioneering contributions to key photonic devices including the arrayed waveguide grating. |
| 2021 | Michal Lipson | In recognition of her fundamental and technological advances in integrated photonic devices. |
| 2020 | Roel Baets | For seminal research in silicon photonics and for driving the foundry model in this field. |
| 2019 | Kim Roberts | For pioneering contributions to the development of practical coherent communication systems. |
| 2018 | Peter J. Winzer | For contributions to understanding and advancing the capacity of coherent optical communication systems including advanced modulation formats and spatial multiplexing. |
| 2017 | E.M. Dianov | For pioneering leadership in optical fiber development and outstanding contributions to nonlinear fiber optics and optical fiber amplifiers. |
| 2016 | Alan H. Gnauck | For sustained pioneering research contributions that drove commercialization of high-speed, high capacity lightwave communication systems. |
| 2015 | Paul Daniel Dapkus | For pioneering and sustained contributions to the development of metal organic chemical vapor deposition and high performance quantum well semiconductor lasers.” |
| 2014 | Kazuro Kikuchi | For pioneering contributions to the fundamental understanding of coherent detection techniques. |
| 2013 | James J. Coleman | For contributions to semiconductor lasers and photonic materials, processing and device designs, including high reliability strained-layer lasers. |
| 2012 | John Bowers | For pioneering research in hybrid-silicon lasers and photonic integrated circuits. |
| 2011 | David F. Welch | For seminal contributions to photonic ICs and semiconductor lasers developed in fiber optic communication systems around the world. |
| 2010 | C. Randy Giles | For seminal contributions to advanced lightwave communications networks including erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, fiber Bragg grating-based subsystems, amd MEMS crossconnects. |
| 2009 | Joe C. Campbell | For seminal contributions to the understanding,design and telecommunication systems implementation of avalanche photodiodes |
| 2008 | Robert W. Tkach | For pioneering breakthroughs in high-capacity transmission systems and networks, including the invention of NZDF (non-zero dispersion fiber) and dispersion management of optical fiber nonlinearities. |
| 2007 | Emmanuel Desurvire | For pioneering contributions to the physical and theoretical understanding of Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and to their early development. |
| 2006 | Donald Scifres | For seminal contributions to semiconductor laser diode technology that power the optical fiber networks and as an entrepreneur in creating one of the premier companies that bring to practice the semiconductor diode laser technology to serve the fiber optics industry. |
| 2005 | Roger H. Stolen | For fundamental contributions to the understanding of optical fiber nonlinearities, including the identification and understanding of simulated Raman scattering in fibers. |
| 2004 | Larry Coldren | For contributions to semiconductor laser diode technology, including widely tunable DBR lasers and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. |
| 2003 | Andrew Chraplyvy | For pioneering research on optical fiber nonlinearities and their dispersion management, and leading wavelength-division-multiplexed fiber transmission systems beyond Terabit/second capacities. |
| 2002 | Neal Bergano | For outstanding technical contributions to and technical leadership in the advancement of global undersea fiber optic communication systems. |
| 2001 | Tatsuo Izawa | For contributions to vapor-phase axial deposition for optical-fiber fabrication and pioneer work of silica-based lightwave circuits. |
| 2000 | Stewart Personick | For pioneering research in optical receiver design, system engineering, and optical time domain reflectometry, and for leadership in education and the promotion of fiber optics. |
| 1999 | John MacChesney | For the invention and development of the MCVD process which is one of the major techniques for the manufacture of low loss optical fibers and for high purity overcladding tubes using sol-gel techniques. |
| 1998 | Kenichi Iga | For pioneering contributions in the development of surface emitting lasers and planar microlens arrays for parallel optoelectronics. |
| 1997 | Ivan Kaminow | For contributions to lightwave device technology involving high-speed modulation, integrated optics, semiconductor lasers, polarization effects in fiber, and WDM components, and to optical FDM networks. |
| 1996 | Kenneth Hill | For discovery of photosensitivity in optical fibers and its application to Bragg gratings used in device applications in optical communications and sensor systems. |
| 1995 | Tingye Li | For sustained advances in high-capacity optical fiber communication systems created by his pioneering research, leadership, and personal contributions over more than two decades. |
| 1994 | Elias Snitzer | For pioneering contributions to optical propagation in fiber and to rare-earth-doped lasers and amplifiers. |
| 1993 | Yasuharu Suematsu | For contributions to wide-band optical fiber communication through his proposed dynamic single-mode lasers and semiconductor-based integrated optics. |
| 1992 | Dr. Donald B. Keck | For the invention and development of methods for manufacture and measurement of devices for optical communication, including low attenuation fibers |
| 1991 | David N. Payne | For outstanding contributions to the design, measurement and fabrication of optical fibers and active fiber devices. |
| 1990 | Thomas Giallorenzi | For significant technical, management, and professional contributions to the development and applications of fiber optics and optical fiber sensor technology. |
| 1989 | Stewart Miller | For his foresight, dedication, technical contributions and pioneering leadership in building the broad foundations for today’s fiber-optic telecommunications systems. |
| 1988 | Michael Barnoski | In recognition of his invention of devices and instruments fundamental to fiber optic technology, and the leadership that he has exerted both in professional societies and in industry in advancing optical communication technology. |
| 1987 | Robert Maurer | In recognition of his contributions to the discovery and understanding of materials and techniques for the fabrication of glass fiber waveguides for optical communication. |