CSEE professor Curtis Menyuk was recently awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award. This award is a significant honor, and comes with 60,000 euros in funding to support research in with German research collaborators.
The Humbolt Research Award award is given to recognize the lifetime research achievments of academics "whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future."
Dr. Menyuk's research is in the field of nonlinear optics and its applications. His expertise is in theoretical and computational modeling, although much of his work has been in collaboration with experimental groups. One major reearch achievement is the development of the basic equations that govern light propagation in optical fibers in the presence of nonlinearity, birefringence, and chromatic dispersion. These equations are the basis for the physical layer modeling of optical fiber communication systems and are used extensively in the telecommunications and photonics industry.
A second achievment is the development of models for determining the stability and noise response of modelocked lasers and other resonators. This work is ongoing, but has already had a significant on the design of short-pulse lasers and other resonators.
A third body of work has been fundamental studies of nonlinear processes in gases and optical fibers. This theoretical work led to scientifically important experimental work and may lead to new methods for high-energy pulse generation and time transfer in optical fibers.
Dr. Menyuk has authored or co-authored more than 250 archival journal publications, edited three books and he is a co-inventor of six patents. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the IEEE. He is a former UMBC Presidential Research Professor.
Here is what Dr. Menyuk has to say about winning the award:
“I was pleased and honored to receive the Humboldt Research Award, which is one of the world's most prestigious academic awards. Most Nobel prize winners in my field and many members of the national academies have won this award. I have been at UMBC for 30 years, and this award is really a recognition of the collective efforts of my research group and colleagues here at UMBC. I am grateful for Dr. Philip Russell of the Max Planck Institute for Light for nominating me and — what is even more important — for giving my research group at UMBC the opportunity to collaborate with one of the world's great research institutes.”
This is the second major international award Dr. Menyuk has won in the past two years. In 2013, Dr. Menyuk was awarded the IEEE Photonics Society Streifer Award.