SID 2015 honors and awards nominations
On behalf of the SID Honors and Awards Committee (H&AC), I am appealing for your active participation in the nomination of deserving individuals for the various SID honors and awards. The SID Board of Directors, based on recommendations made by the H&AC, grants all the awards. These awards include five major prizes awarded to individuals, not necessarily members of SID, based upon their outstanding achievements. The Karl Ferdinand Braun prize is awarded for “Outstanding Technical Achievement in, or Contribution to, Display Technology.” The prize is named in honor of the German physicist and Nobel Laureate Karl Ferdinand Braun who, in 1897, invented the cathode-ray tube (CRT). Scientific and technical achievements that cover either a wide range of display technologies or the fundamental principles of a specific technology are the prime reasons for awarding this prize to a nominee. The Jan Rajchman prize is awarded for “Outstanding Scientific and Technical Achievement or Research in the Field of Flat-Panel Displays.” This prize is specifically dedicated to those individuals who have made major contributions to one of the flat-panel-display technologies or, through their research activities, have advanced the state of understanding of one of those technologies. The Otto Schade prize is awarded for “Outstanding Scientific or Technical Achievement in the Advancement of Functional Performance and/or Image Quality of Information Displays.” This prize is named in honor of the pioneering RCA engineer Otto Schade, who invented the concept of the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and who used it to characterize the entire display system, including the human observer. The advancement for this prize may be achieved in any display technology or display system or may be of a more general or theoretical nature. The scope of eligible advancement is broadly envisioned to encompass the areas of display systems, display electronics, applied vision and display human factors, image processing, and display metrology. The nature of eligible advancements may be in the form of theoretical or mathematical models, algorithms, software, hardware, or innovative methods of display-performance measurement and image-quality characterization. Each of these above-mentioned prizes carries a $2000 stipend sponsored by AU Optronics Corp., Sharp Corporation, and Samsung Display, respectively.
The Slottow–Owaki prize is awarded for “Outstanding Contributions to the Education and Training of Students and Professionals in the Field of Information Display.” This prize is named in honor of Professor H. Gene Slottow, University of Illinois, an inventor of the plasma display and Professor Kenichi Owaki from the Hiroshima Institute of Technology and an early leader of the pioneering Fujitsu Plasma Display program. The oustanding education and training contributions recognized by this prize is not limited to those of a professor in a formal university, but may also include training given by researchers, engineers, and managers in industry who have done an outstanding job developing information-display professionals. The Slottow–Owaki prize carries a $2000 stipend made possible by a generous gift from Fujitsu, Ltd., and Professor Tsutae Shinoda.
The fifth major SID award, the Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award, is awarded for “Exceptional and Sustained Service to the Society.” This award is granted exclusively to those who have worked hard over many years to further the goals of the Society.
The membership grade of SID Fellow is one of unusual professional distinction. Each year the SID Board of Directors elects a limited number (up to 0.1% of the membership in that year) of SID members in good standing to the grade of Fellow. To be eligible, candidates must have been members at the time of nomination for at least 5 years, with the last 3 years consecutive. A candidate for election to Fellow is a member with “Outstanding Qualifications and Experience as a Scientist or Engineer in the Field of Information Display who has made Widely Recognized and Significant Contributions to the Advancement of the Display Field” over a sustained period of time. SID members practicing in the field recognize the nominee’s work as providing significant technical contributions to knowledge in their area(s) of expertise. For this reason, five endorsements from SID members are required to accompany each Fellow nomination. Each Fellow nomination is evaluated by the H&AC, based on a weighted set of five criteria. These criteria and their assigned weights are creativity and patents, 30%; technical accomplishments and publications, 30%; technical leadership, 20%; service to SID, 15%; and other accomplishments, 5%. When submitting a Fellow award nomination, please keep these criteria with their weights in mind.
The Special Recognition Award is given annually to a number of individuals (membership in the SID is not required) of the scientific and business community for distinguished and valued contribution in the information-display field. These awards are given for contributions in one or more of the following categories: (a) Outstanding Technical Accomplishments, (b) Outstanding Contributions to the Literature, (c) Outstanding Service to the Society, (d) Outstanding Entrepreneurial Accomplishments, and (e) Outstanding Achievements in Education. When evaluating the Special Recognition Award nominations, the H&AC uses a five-level rating scale in each of the above-listed five categories, and these categories have equal weight. Nominators should indicate the category in which a Special Recognition Award nomination is to be considered by the H&AC. More than one category may be indicated. The nomination should, of course, stress accomplishments in the category or categories selected by the nominator.
While an individual nominated for an award or election to Fellow may not submit his/her own nomination, nominators may, if necessary, ask a nominee for information that will be useful in preparing the nomination. The nomination process is relatively simple, but requires that the nominator and perhaps some colleagues devote a little time to preparation of the supporting material that the H&AC needs in order to evaluate each nomination for its merit. It is not necessary to submit a complete publication record with a nomination. Just list the titles of the most significant half a dozen or less papers and patents authored by the nominee, and list the total number of papers and patents he/she has authored.
Determination of the winners for SID honors and awards is a highly selective process. On average, less than 30% of the nominations are selected to receive awards. Some of the major prizes are not awarded every year due to the lack of sufficiently qualified nominees. On the other hand, once a nomination is submitted, it will stay active for three consecutive years and will be considered three times by the H&AC. The nominator of such a nomination may improve the chances of the nomination by submitting additional material for the second or third year that it is considered, but such changes are not required.
Descriptions of each award and the lists of previous award winners can be found at www.sid.org/Awards/IndividualHonorsandAwards.aspx. Nomination forms can be downloaded by clicking on “click here” at the bottom of the text box on the above site where you will find Nomination Templates in both MS Word (preferred) and Text formats. Please use the links to find the Sample Nominations, which are useful for composing your nomination since these are the actual successful nominations for some previous SID awards. Nominations should preferably be submitted by e-mail. However, you can also submit nominations by ordinary mail if necessary.
Please note that with each Fellow nomination, only five written endorsements by five SID members are required. These brief endorsements – a minimum of 2–3 sentences to a maximum of one-half page in length – must state why clearly and succinctly, in the opinion of the endorser, the nominee deserves to be elected to a Fellow of the Society. Identical endorsements by two or more endorsers will be automatically rejected (no form letters, please). Please send these endorsements to me either by e-mail (preferred) or by hardcopy to the address stated in the accompanying text box. Only the Fellow nominations are required to have these endorsements. However, I encourage you to submit at least a few endorsements for all nominations since they will frequently add further support to your nomination.
All 2016 award nominations are to be submitted by October 9, 2015. E-mail your nominations directly to swu@ucf.edu with cc to office@sid.org. If that is not possible, then please send your hardcopy nomination by regular mail.
As I state each year: “In our professional lives, there are few greater rewards than recognition by our peers. For an individual in the field of displays, an award or prize from the SID, which represents his or her peers worldwide, is a most significant, happy, and satisfying experience. In addition, the overall reputation of the society depends on the individuals who are in its ‘Hall of Fame.’
When you nominate someone for an award or prize, you are bringing happiness to an individual and his or her family and friends, and you are also benefiting the society as a whole.”
Thank you for your nomination in advance.
— Shin-Tson Wu Chair, SID Honors & Awards Committee
SID honors and awards nominations
EuroDisplay 2015 Posts Advance Program for Ghent Event
The Advance Program for EuroDisplay 2015, which takes place September 21–23 in Ghent, Belgium, is now available on the EuroDisplay website (www.sideurodisplay.org). EuroDisplay 2015 is run by the Society for Information Display in conjunction with Ghent University and its Centre for Microsystems Technology and Liquid Crystal & Photonics Group.
Featured sessions include Emerging Liquid-Crystal Technologies, Human Interaction, and Quantum Dots, just to name a few. And among many intriguing papers listed in the program are “Eco-Friendly Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diode with Inorganic Charge-Transport Layer” from Korea Electronics Technology Institute, Korea University, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research; and “Quantifying the Ability of Individuals with Macular Disease to See and Read Content on Virtual and Augmented-Reality Devices,” with authors from Heriot-Watt University, Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, and the University of Edinburgh.
Keynote speakers at EuroDisplay will include Ian Underwood of the University of Edinburgh, who will speak about the commercial track record and potential of European display research in the global market; Kayvan Mirza from Optinvent, who will discuss wearable displays as the next mobile paradigm; and Nelson Tabiryan of Beam Company, whose topic will be “The Fourth Generation of Optics.”
Conference organizers note that EuroDisplay 2015 takes place during the well-known annual musical event, the Festival of Flanders, which is being held in Ghent this year. For this reason, anyone still needing to make room reservations should do so as soon as possible. EuroDisplay also urges attendees to take in some of the many concerts going on during the week. For more information, visit the Festival of Flanders website at http://www.gentfestival.be/en.
EuroDisplay belongs to the IDRC (International Display Research Conference) series of SID conferences and is slightly more focused on academic research than on product development, as compared to Display Week, for example. For more information about Eurodisplay 2015 visit www.sideurodisplay.org. General Chair Herbert De Smet can be reached at Herbert.DeSmet@elis.UGent.be.
Mark Your Calendar: Vehicle Symposium Is October 22 and23
The 22nd Annual Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Symposium and Exhibition takes place October 22 and 23, 2015, in Dearborn, Michigan. Automotive displays are a hot topic these days and most display designers, engineers, manufacturers, researchers, sales and marketing professionals, and system integrators should consider attending.
The symposium will feature technical presentations by scientists and engineers from the display technology, photonics, vehicle systems, and applications communities. Areas of focus will include the automotive marketplace, display and lighting technologies for vehicular applications, the human–machine interface, application issues, and advanced vehicle-display technologies such as sunlight readability, nanotechnology, and metal oxides. New this year is a $1,000 award to the student with the best oral or poster presentation. A concurrent table-top exhibition will include more than 35 companies from both the automotive and display worlds. For more information, visit www.vehicledisplay.org. •