Ames Lab News Release:

Soukoulis Wins 2014 Max Born Award

Contacts:                                                                For Release: April 8, 2014
Costas Soukoulis, Physicist, 515-294-2816
Breehan Gerleman Lucchesi, Public Affairs 515-294-9750

Costas Soukoulis, senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University and associated member of IESL-FORTH in Greece, has won the 2014 Max Born Award from the Optical Society of America. The award honors a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the scientific field of physical optics.

The Max Born Award committee specifically cited Soukoulis for his “creative and outstanding theoretical and experimental research in the fields of photonic crystals and left-handed metamaterials.” The award, which honors the contributions of Max Born to optical physics, was established in 1982, the centenary of Born’s birth and is endowed by United Technologies Research Center, Physical Optics Corporation, and individuals including Joseph Goodman.

Soukoulis received his B.Sc. from University of Athens in 1974. He obtained his Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1978. From 1978 to 1981 he was at the Physics Dept. at University of Virginia. He spent 3 years (1981-84) at Exxon Research and Engineering Co. and since 1984 has been at Iowa State University (ISU) and Ames Laboratory. He has been an associated member of IESL-FORTH at Heraklion, Crete, since 1983.

His research interest is to develop theoretical understanding of the properties of disordered systems, with emphasis on electron and photon localization, photonic crystals, random lasers, and metamaterials. The theoretical models developed are often quite sophisticated to accurately reflect the complexity of real materials.

Soukoulis received the senior Humboldt Research Award; he shared the Descartes award for research on metamaterials; he shared the 2013 APS McGroddy Prize; received an honorary doctorate from Vrije University in Brussels and the first Frances M. Craig endowed chair in Physics at ISU. He is Fellow of the APS, OSA, and AAAS. He has served on several boards and committees for organizations, including NSF, DOE, and European Union and he is a member of the editorial board of PRL. He has been a member or a chairman of various scientific committees responsible for various international conferences.

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Ames Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory operated by Iowa State University. Ames Laboratory creates innovative materials, technologies and energy solutions. We use our expertise, unique capabilities and interdisciplinary collaborations to solve global problems.