Prof. Andrew POON Wing-On, Head and Professor of Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering (ECE), was elected a 2022 Fellow of Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA)) “for outstanding and sustained contributions to microcavity optics and photonics and their applications in silicon photonics”.

Prof. Poon is one of the 106 Fellows from 24 countries and regions elected this year. They are selected based on factors including distinguished contributions to education, research, engineering, business and serving the community.

The election process is highly competitive as Fellows can account for no more than 10% of the total membership. The Fellow number elected each year is limited to approximately 0.5% of the current membership total.

Prof. Poon said he was truly humbled by the fellowship. “The credit goes to all my former and present students, who did a lot of the hard work; and to my nominator and referees, who have given me their strongest support. My deepest gratitude goes to my teacher, the late Prof. Richard CHANG of Yale. He enlightened me, and empowered me to do the same on others,” he said.

Prof. Poon joined HKUST in 2001 after receiving his MPhil and PhD degrees, both in physics, from Yale University. Since 2002, he and his students have been spearheading diverse research directions in optical microcavities leveraging wafer-level silicon nanofabrication processes. The Poon research group is among the early players of the now global silicon photonics community in academia and industry.

An established scholar in the field of silicon photonics and optical microresonators, Prof. Poon’s work has been published in top academic journals such as Optics Express and Optics Letters. He has been serving as a senior editor for IEEE Photonics Technology Letters since 2017.

His strong administrative and leadership capabilities have been demonstrated in his roles as the Director of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program since 2016 and Director of the Nanosystem Fabrication Facility (NFF) from 2016 to 2021.

With this new fellow honor, the ECE Department now has five Optica Fellows in its faculty. The other Fellows are Prof. KWOK Hoi-Sing, Prof. Kei May LAU, Prof. QU Jianan, and Prof. Patrick YUE.

Founded in 1916, Optica advances optics and photonics worldwide and is dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the field.

Related link:

• Optica news release (Nov 18, 2021): Optica Announces Its 2022 Fellows Class