Electrical and computer engineering professor Aydogan Ozcan from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Ozcan, who holds the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation, also has a faculty appointment at UCLA Samueli’s Bioengineering Department and serves as an associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). He was elected to the academy for his major contributions to mobile sensing, computational imaging, microscopy and medical diagnostics.
One of the pioneers in computational optics, Ozcan brings high-resolution imaging and sensing techniques into mobile phones and other lower-cost portable devices, eliminating the need for bulky and expensive equipment. He has developed a series of innovative microscopy techniques, utilizing algorithms to replace traditional optical lenses for high-volume, high-resolution, rapid imaging in biomedical sensing and diagnostics. Ozcan has also incorporated artificial intelligence into advanced optics and microscopy tools, with broad applications in biomedicine and healthcare aimed at increasing access to advanced measurements in resource-limited areas.
Among Ozcan’s many awards and recognitions are the Joseph Fraunhofer Award and Robert M. Burley Prize for optical engineering from Optica, the Dennis Gabor Award from SPIE – the International Society for Optics and Photonics, as well as the ICO Prize from the International Commission for Optics (ICO). He is also an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, SPIE, Optica, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Physical Society and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
As a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors, Ozcan holds more than 85 issued patents and has co-founded three start-up companies based on technologies spun out of his research lab. For the past six years in a row, Ozcan has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by the international data and analytics firm Web of Science, Clarivate – which compiles an annual list of researchers who have published multiple papers that ranked in the top 1% by peer citations during the previous decade.
Ozcan joined UCLA’s faculty as an assistant professor in 2007 following a research faculty position at Harvard Medical School and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, where he earned his doctorate.
Founded in 1990, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts brings together approximately 1,900 leading scholars and practitioners – among them 29 Nobel Prize winners from across Europe – who are elected for their achievements in science, arts and governance. Ozcan will be a member of its technical and environmental sciences cohort.