Seppo Honkanen, President of the EOS commented, “We were delighted to receive so many outstanding applications for the Young Women in Photo nics Award. With such a broad range of research areas, we decided in the end to give two awards in different categories: Fundamental and Applied/ Engineering. The large number of excellent candidates suggests that measures to attract women into photo nics are having a positive effect, but we believe there is still much more to do. As a legacy of the LIGHT2015 project, the EOS will therefore plan to co ntinue giving these awards in the future, in co nnection with its bi-annual EOSAM Symposium."

Young Women in Photonics Award: Fundamental Category

Winner: Na Liu.

In the Fundamental category, the prize is awarded to Dr. Na Liu for “her seminal co ntribution to nanophoto nics and nanoplasmonics. She established 3D stacking of plasmo nic structures, enabling the manufacturing of complex plasmo nic functio nal devices. Using this method, she realized the first 3D stereome tamaterials, the first 3D analog of EIT in plasmonics, exhibiting well-modulated Fano resonances, the first single plasmo nic antenna-enhanced gas sensor, the first near-IR plasmo nic perfect absorber, the first plasmo nic glucose sensor ba sed on Fano resonances, the first plasmo nic 3D ruler, the first 3D chiral plasmo nic structure, the first 3D reco nfigurable plasmo nic system ba sed on DNA assembly, and the first DNA-ba sed plasmo nic gas sensor. Her work has transformed plasmo nics from a fundamental field in science into the applications realm.“

Na Liu (age 36) completed her doctorate at the University of Stuttgart. Dr Na worked as a postdoc at the University of California at Berkeley and later as a visiting professor at Rice University. She is a group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and also a full professor at University of Heidelberg.

Winner: Nathalie Vermeulen.