Texas A&M Physicist Alexey Belyanin Recognized as Optical Society Fellow
COLLEGE STATION —
Dr. Alexey Belyanin, professor of physics and astronomy at Texas A&M University, has been elected as a Fellow of The Optical Society (OSA) in recognition of his achievements in business leadership, education, research, engineering and service.
(Credit: Dr. Alexey Belyanin.)
Belyanin, an internationally respected leader in the multidisciplinary research field of optics of nanostructured materials, is cited “for outstanding contributions to the optics of semiconductors, nanostructures and emerging optoelectronic materials, and for development of novel lasers and other optoelectronic devices in the mid-infrared and terahertz spectral range.” He is among 98 honorees unveiled Monday (Oct. 22) as the Society’s 2019 Fellows Class.
“Being named an OSA Fellow is an honor accorded to those of rare distinction in their field, and carries the responsibility of service to and leadership of the optics and photonics communities,” said OSA President Ian Walmsley. “I congratulate the 2019 class on their achievements.”
OSA Fellows are members who have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics. Nominations are submitted by current OSA Fellows and reviewed by the OSA Fellow Members Committee, which then recommends candidates to the Awards Council and OSA Board of Directors. No more than 10 percent of the total OSA membership may be Fellows at any given time, making each year’s honorees a highly selective group.
“The OSA Fellow Members Committee has been successful at expanding the level and type of achievements that factor into qualifying for this distinction,” said CEO Elizabeth Rogan. “The 2019 Fellows Class reflects a diverse and inclusive representation of OSA’s growing membership.”
Belyanin, a member of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy who joined the Texas A&M faculty in 2003, is world-renowned for his breakthrough ideas and developments in research fields that span semiconductor physics, quantum optics, photonic devices and high-energy astrophysics. In addition to serving as associate head for undergraduate programs in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, he serves as a faculty advisor for the Texas A&M chapter of the Society of Physics Students.
Belyanin’s research group specializes in the optics of semiconductors, nanostructures and topological materials. He has led Texas A&M efforts in two National Science Foundation-funded, multi-university consortiums for more than a decade. He is widely respected by his peers for his breadth of knowledge, his uncanny ability to bridge the gap between theory and experimentalists, and his ability to attract research funding, as evidenced by his three NSF grants awarded since 2016 and current six-year Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Materials Program grant through 2020.
Belyanin has published in excess of 130 papers in peer-reviewed journals — 12 in the past two years alone — and is a frequent reviewer of papers submitted to Science, Nature and other prominent journals. He is a reviewer for the McArthur Foundation and a review panelist for several NSF programs and other federal agencies, including AFOSR, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and the Army Research Office (ARO). An in-demand presenter at invited conferences and symposia across the world, he has also chaired a number of major international conferences.
Equally respected in the classroom and broader educational community, Belyanin has developed a new graduate course while at Texas A&M and taught several service courses, in addition to co-founding and co-organizing the annual Mitchell Institute Physics Enhancement Program (MIPEP) each summer since 2012 for physics teachers from Texas high schools. His extensive outreach activity during the past decade and a half includes hundreds of lectures and physics demonstrations for K-12 students, school teachers and the general public.
Belyanin received his Ph.D. from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1995 and held research positions at the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and at Texas A&M prior to joining the Texas A&M Physics and Astronomy faculty. He was granted early tenure in spring 2007.
A fellow of the American Physical Society (2012) and International Society for Optics and Photonics (2015), Belyanin previously has been recognized with an NSF CAREER Award (2006), the JoAnn Treat Research Excellence Award (2007) and lectureships at both Lund University (2011) and the University of Jena Abbe School of Photonics (2011).
Founded in 1916 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., The Optical Society is the leading professional association in optics and photonics, home to accomplished science, engineering, and business leaders from all over the world. Through world-renowned publications, meetings, and membership programs, OSA provides quality information and inspiring interactions that power achievements in the science of light. For more information, visit www.osa.org.
See a complete list of 2019 Fellows and learn more about OSA’s Awards and Grants Program.
To learn more about Belyanin and his research, visit http://people.physics.tamu.edu/belyanin/.
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About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $905.4 million in fiscal year 2017. Texas A&M ranked in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2016), based on expenditures of more than $892.7 million in fiscal year 2016. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit http://research.tamu.edu/.
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Contact: Shana K. Hutchins, (979) 862-1237 or shutchins@tamu.edu or Dr. Alexey Belyanin, (979) 845-7785 or belyanin@physics.tamu.edu
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