Ben Eggleton wins prestigious optical society medal

The Australian and New Zealand Optical Society has awarded School of Physics’ Professor Ben Eggleton the 2020 WH "Beattie" Steel Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Australian and international optics and photonics communities by leading several major cooperative centres, an exceptional research and development record, and organisational services to the optics community.

Professor Eggleton is well known for his contributions in the field of optical communications technology with applications to chip-based, ultra-fast, energy efficient information signal processing devices.

The medal is the most prestigious award of the Australian and New Zealand Optical Society. It is presented to a nominee with a strong and sustained record of authority, enterprise and innovation in the field of optics in Australia or New Zealand.

Professor Eggleton was awarded the Medal in an online ANZOS Annual General Meeting on Friday 4 December.

Professor Benjamin Eggleton is also the Director of the University of Sydney Nano Institute. He also currently serves as co-Director of the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN). Professor Eggleton was the founding Director of the Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS) at the University of Sydney and served as Director from 2009-2018.

He was previously an ARC Laureate Fellow and an ARC Federation Fellow twice and was founding Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) from 2003-2017.

The WH Steel Medal was previously awarded to other University of Sydney School of Physics researchers, Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn in 2015 and Professor Ross McPhedran in 2004.