SID 2007 honors and awards nominations 

On behalf of the SID Honors and Awards Committee (H&AC), I am appealing for your active participation in the nomination of deserving individuals for the various SID honors and awards. The SID Board of Directors, based on recommendations made by the H&AC, grants all the awards. These awards include six major prizes awarded to individuals, not necessarily members of SID, based upon their outstanding achievements. The Karl Ferdinand Braun prize is awarded for “Outstanding Technical Achievement in Display Technology.” Scientific and technical achievements that cover either a wide range of display technologies or the fundamental principles of a specific technology are the prime reasons for granting this prize to a nominee. The Jan Rajchman prize is granted for “Outstanding Scientific and Technical Achievement or Research in the Field of Flat-Panel Displays.” This prize is specifically dedicated to those individuals who have made major contributions to one of the flat-panel-display technologies or, through their research activities, have advanced the state of understanding of one of those technologies. The Johann Gutenberg prize is awarded for “Outstanding Technical Achievement in Printing Technology.” This prize is specifically devoted to those who have excelled in the field of hard-copy printing. The Johann Gutenberg Prize is jointly sponsored by the SID and the Society for Imaging Science and Technology. The Otto Schade prize for Display Performance and Image Quality is awarded for “Outstanding Scientific or Technical Achievement in the Advancement of Functional Performance and/or Image Quality of Information Displays.” This prize is named in honor of the pioneering RCA engineer Otto Schade, who invented the concept of the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and who used it to characterize the entire display system, including the human observer. The advancement for this prize may be achieved in any display technology or display system or may be of a more general or theoretical nature. The scope of eligible advancement is broadly envisioned to encompass the areas of display systems, display electronics, applied vision and display human factors, image processing, and display metrology. The nature of eligible advancements is not limited and may be in the form of theoretical or mathematical models, algorithms, software, hardware, or innovative methods of display performance measurement, and image quality characterization. Each of these above-mentioned prizes carries a $2000 stipend sponsored by Thompson, Inc., Sharp Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, and Philips Consumer Electronics, respectively.

The fifth major SID award, the Lewis and Beatrice Winner Award, is awarded for “Exceptional and Sustained Service to the Society.” This award is granted exclusively to those who have worked hard over many years to further the goals of the Society. 

This year, the SID Board of Directors approved the establishment of a new major award. The Slottow–Owaki prize for Outstanding Contributions to Information-Display Education is awarded for “Outstanding Contributions to Personnel Training in the Field of Information Display.” This prize is named in honor of Professor H. Gene Slottow, University of Illinois, an inventor of the plasma display and Professor Kenichi Owaki from the Hiroshima Institute of Technology and an early leader of the pioneering Fujitsu Ltd. Plasma Program. The outstanding education recognized by this prize is not limited to a formal university experience, but this award may also be given to researchers, engineers, managers, as well as professors who have done an outstanding job developing information-display professionals. To be eligible for this award, the candidate does not necessarily have to be a member of SID. The Slottow–Owaki prize carries a $2000 stipend made possible by a generous gift from Fujitsu Ltd. and Professor Tsutae Shinoda.

The SID Fellow Award is given each year to a number (up to 0.1% of the membership in that year) of SID members in good standing for at least five years at the time of the nomination, who have demonstrated “Outstanding Scientific or Technical Engineering Achievements in the Field of Displays over a Sustained Period of Time,” and who are recognized as significant technical contributors to knowledge in their area(s) of expertise by SID members practicing in the field. For this reason, five endorsements from SID members are required to accompany each Fellow Award nomination. Each Fellow nomination is evaluated by the H&AC, based on a weighted set of five criteria. These criteria and their assigned weights are creativity and patents, 30%; technical accomplishments and publications, 30%; technical leadership, 20%; service to SID, 15%; and other accomplishments, 5%. When submitting a Fellow award nomination, please keep these criteria with their weights in mind. 

The Special Recognition Award is given annually to a number of individuals (membership in the SID is not required) of the scientific and business community for distinguished and valued contribution in the field of displays. These awards are given for contributions in one or more of the following categories: (a) Outstanding Technical Accomplishments, (b) Outstanding Contributions to the Literature, (c) Outstanding Service to the Society, (d) Outstanding Entrepreneurial Accomplishments, and (e) Outstanding Achievements in Education. When evaluating the Special Recognition Award nomination, the H&AC uses a five-level rating scale in each of the above-listed five categories, and these categories have equal weight. Nominators should indicate the category in which a Special Recognition Award nomination should be considered by the H&AC. More than one category may be indicated. The accompanying nomination should, of course, stress accomplishments in the category or categories selected by the nominator. 

While individuals nominated for an award may not submit their own nomination, nominators may ask a nominee for information that will be used in his/her nomination. The selection and nomination process is relatively simple, but requires that you and perhaps some of your colleagues devote some time to preparation of the supporting material that the H&AC needs in order to evaluate each nomination for its merit. It is not necessary to submit a complete publication record with a nomination. Just list the titles of the most significant half a dozen or less papers and patents authored by the nominee, and list the total number of papers and patents he/she has authored. 

Determination of the winners for SID honors and awards is a highly selective process. Last year less than 30% of the nominations were selected to receive awards. Some of the major prizes are not awarded every year due to the lack of sufficiently qualified nominees or, in some cases, because no nominations were submitted. On the other hand, once a nomination is submitted, it will stay active for three consecutive years, and will be considered three times by the H&AC. The nominator of such a nomination may improve the chances of the nomination by submitting additional material for the second or third year that it is considered, but such changes are not required. If a nomination is not awarded over this three-year period, the nominee will not be considered again.

Descriptions of each award and the lists of previous award winners can be found at www.sid.org/awards/indawards.html. Nomination forms are available at www.sid.org/awards/nomination.html where you will find Nomination Templates in both MS Word (preferred) and Text formats. Please use the links to find the Sample Nominations which are useful for composing your nomination since these are the actual successful nominations for some previous SID awards. Nominations should preferably be submitted by e-mail. However, you can also submit nominations by ordinary mail if necessary.

Please note that with each Fellow Award nomination, only five written endorsements by five SID members is required. These brief endorsements – a minimum of 2–3 sentences to a maximum of one-half page in length – must state why, in the opinion of the endorser, the nominee deserves to receive the Fellow Award. Identical endorsements by two or more endorsers will be automatically rejected (no form letters, please). Please send these endorsements to me either by e-mail (preferred) or by hardcopy to the address stated in the accompanying text box. Only the Fellow Award nominations are required to have these endorsements. However, I encourage you to submit at least a few endorsements for all nominations of the other awards since these will frequently add further support to your nomination. 

All 2007 award nominations are to be submitted by October 12, 2007. E-mail your nominations directly to cnelsonk@comcast.net or sidawards@sid.org. If that is not possible, then please send your hardcopy nomination by regular mail. 

As I state each year: “In our professional lives, there are few greater rewards than recognition by our peers. For an individual in the field of displays, an award or prize from the SID, that represents her or his peers worldwide, is a most significant happy and satisfying experience. In addition, the overall reputation of the society depends on who are the individuals who are in its ‘Hall of Fame.’ 

When you nominate someone for an award or prize, you are bringing happiness to an individual and his or her family and friends, and you are also benefiting the society as a whole.”

Thank you for your nomination in advance.

– Christopher N. King
SID Honors & Awards Committee