IEEE Awards Booklet - 2019 - 18

2019 Ieee medAls

IEEE Simon Ramo Medal

IEEE Edison Medal

Sponsored by Northrop Grumman Corporation

Sponsored by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Harold Lawson

Ursula Keller

For pioneering contributions to
computer systems, systems engineering,
and standards

For pioneering and fundamental contributions to and leadership in useable, compact
ultrafast laser technology, enabling applications in metrology, sensing, and biophotonics

With a distinguished career that began under the mentorship of
the legendary computer scientist Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper, Harold "Bud" Lawson has influenced the work of
millions of software designers and programmers with pioneering
work in hardware, software, and real-time system technologies.
One of Lawson's greatest accomplishments was the development
of the pointer variable concept to deal with complex data structures in programming languages.The pointer variable has allowed
programmers to eﬀectively create higher-level language programs
to solve complex problems in applications including computer
graphics and systems programs such as compilers and operating
systems. First introduced in the PL/I programming language in
1965, Lawson's pointer variable concept has been implemented
in a wide variety of general- and special-purpose programming
languages including C, Pascal, C++, and Ada. Lawson established
the on-board software architecture for the world's first microprocessor-based automatic train control system, where he viewed the
operation as continuous instead of discrete.This led to a stable and
sustainable solution that has been functioning for over 36 years
in Sweden and Norway. His concepts were further developed for
vehicles and have also been utilized in the Haldex four-wheel
drive coupling device used in millions of automobiles around
the world. Lawson has also contributed to standards development,
helping to establish processes for systems life-cycle management.
He was the elected architect of the ISO/IEC 15288 Standard,
which served as the basis for the International Council of Systems
Engineers (INCOSE) handbook on systems engineering used for
certifying systems engineers. It also provided the framework for
the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBOK). Lawson
also established one of the earliest programs in computer engineering (at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1967) and cofounded the first computer science department in Sweden (at
Linkoping University in 1983).
An IEEE Life Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery
Fellow, INCOSE Fellow, and recipient of the IEEE Computer
Society's Computer Pioneer Award (2000), Lawson is a consultant with Lawson Konsult AB, Stockholm, Sweden.

The remarkable innovations of Ursula Keller have pushed the
frontiers in ultrafast science and technology by providing solidstate and semiconductor lasers with ultrashort pulse generation
that are revolutionizing photonics and tremendously impacting
physics, biology, and telecommunications. Keller developed the
semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) for generating ultrashort pulses, which transformed femtosecond lasers
from complex devices only used by specialists to reliable instruments suitable for use in any general-purpose scientific laboratory. She has since continued to define and push the technology
with world-leading experimental results that have demonstrated
orders of magnitude improvement in key features such as pulse
duration, energy, and average power. Her SESAM technology
overcame switching instabilities that had prevented modelocking
of solid-state lasers for more than two decades and demonstrated
how to generate picosecond and femtosecond pulses from diode-pumped laser technology lasers in a scalable, stable, and reliable manner. Keller also pioneered vertical external cavity surface
emitting lasers (VECSELs), which provide superior beam quality
even at high powers and can operate both in the continuous
wave and pulsed regimes. Combining the merits of SESAM and
VECSELs, Keller proposed and demonstrated a new concept for
the generation of ultrashort optical pulses from an all-semiconductor laser system. The modelocked integrated external-cavity
surface emitting laser (MIXSEL) enables wafer-scale integration
of gain and saturable absorption that allows simple and compact ultrafast lasers to be realized with the potential for highvolume manufacturing. She led her research group to overcome
extreme technical challenges to achieve a 150-fold increase in
the power emitted by MIXSELs. Keller's development of carrier
phase stabilization and frequency comb technology was integral
to Hänsch and Hall's development of laser-based spectroscopy
that garnered them the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics.
An IEEE Fellow and recipient of the Optical Society's Charles
H. Townes Award (2015), Keller is director of the Swiss National
Centre of Competence for Research in Molecular Ultrafast Science and Technology (NCCR MUST) at ETH Zürich, Zürich,
Switzerland.

Scope: For exceptional achievement in systems engineering and
systems science.

Scope: For a career of meritorious achievement in electrical science,
electrical engineering, or the electrical arts.

18 | 2019 IEEE awards bookLET
IEEE Awards Booklet - 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2019
