EOS Early Career Women in Photonics Award
The EOS Early Career Women in Photonics Award is presented to honor a young female scientist who has made outstanding contributions to photonics.
The award consists of a diploma and an honorarium of €2500.
Application deadline: 4 April 2025.
The last award was presented at an award ceremony at the CLEO/Europe-EQEC on Tuesday 27 June 2023, 10:30 – 12:30 CET,
held within the World of Photonics Congress from 25-30 June 2023.
Eligibility:
Any woman, EOS member, active in the field of photonics, with not more than 10 years after obtaining her PhD, may apply for the award. One additional year on top of the 10 years is allowed per child.
How to apply:
Candidates should fill in the application form and send a list of supporting documents.
Send the supporting documents here, combined into ONE file (PDF preferred). Attachments should be sent before the submission deadline.
Required Supporting Documents:
- One letter of support
- A biography/CV (max 2 pages)
- A list of publications
- A description of the contribution (max 1 page of A4, 12-point text), making clear the contribution to photonics
Award Committee Chair: Roelene Botha, Canton St. Gallen, Switzerland, and Treasurer of EOS
For more information, contact: Elina Koistinen, EOS Executive Director, elina@europeanoptics.org
Background to Award
EOS Early Career Women/Entrepreneur in Photonics awards were launched in 2015 to honor the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015 (IYL2015), which was a global initiative adopted by the United Nations to raise awareness of how optical technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to worldwide challenges in energy, education, agriculture, communications, and health. The awards were part of the activity of the LIGHT2015 project. In its launching year, the awards were known as LIGHT2015 Young Women in Photonics/Young Photonics Entrepreneur Awards.
The Early Career Women in Photonics Award is presented to honour a young female scientist who has made outstanding contributions to photonics.
Download the EOS Early Career Women in Photonics Award flyer
Download PDF Award Winners
2023
The Early Career Women in Photonics Award was awarded to Margherita Maiuri, from the Politecnico di Milano for her contributions in advancing photonic technologies and in particular ultrafast optical spectroscopy for furthering the understanding of the principles of photosynthesis and designing solar energy conversion systems based on photovoltaic, photosynthetic or photocatalytic approaches.
The award consisted of a diploma and an honorarium of €2500. The award was presented at the award ceremony of the CLEO/Europe-EQEC on Tuesday 27 June 2023, 10:30 – 12:30 CET, held within the World of Photonics Congress during 25-30 June 2023.
2021
The Early Career Women in Photonics Award was awarded to Rocío Borrego Varillas, from the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies, Italian Research Council for her contributions to the development of novel techniques for ultrashort pulse generation in the ultraviolet range and their applications to ultrafast spectroscopy. The beamlines she has developed have record temporal resolution and have allowed her to access the dynamics in a number of relevant bio-molecules and advanced photonics materials in the sub-100 fs time scale, pushing ultrafast spectroscopy significantly beyond the state of the art.
The award consisted of a diploma and an honorarium of €2500. The award was presented at the award ceremony of the online CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2021, held within the World of Photonics Congress during 20 - 24 June 2021.
2016
The Early Career Women in Photonics Award went to Camille-Sophie Brès, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) for her outstanding research and work on Fiber and Waveguide Optics.
The award consisted of a diploma and an honorarium of €2500. The award was presented at the European Optical Society Biennial Meeting (EOSAM) in Berlin, Germany, on 27 September 2016.
2015
The Young Women in Photonics award was divided into two categories due to the high level of applicants. The Young Women in Photonics Awards went to Laura Na Liu (Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems) in the Fundamental category and Nathalie Vermeulen (Photonics Team (B-PHOT), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)) in the Applied/Engineering category. The awards consisted of a diploma and an honorarium of €2500. The awards were presented at the World of Photonics Congress in Munich, Germany, in June 2015.
Special recognition was given to two other outstanding applications: Francesca Calegari (National Research Council of Italy – Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies (CNR – IFN) and Camille-Sophie Bres (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)).
EOS interviewed Nathalie Vermeulen to see where she is now and how her career has progressed. Read the article here: 
Women in Photonics Nathalie
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