News - 20-Feb-2020

Holst Memorial Lecture Award

Joseph Braat presents the Holst Memorial Lecture 2019 and receives the Holst Award medal from TU Eindhoven, Philips Research and Signify for his work in the field of imaging optics.

Holst Memorial Lecture Award

This year’s Holst Lecture will be the 43rd since 1977. The Holst Lecturer will join the ranks of eminent scientists and/or Nobel laureates like Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Hendrik Casimir, Ilya Prigogine, Arno Penzias, Nicholas Negroponte, Alan Heeger, John Craig Venter and Shuji Nakamura.

The first Holst Memorial Lecture was given in 1977 to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. With support from Philips Research, the Holst Lecture given by a most eminent scientist in a selected research domain to an audience consisting of university staff, students, representatives from industry and other guests with a general interest in science and technology became an annual tradition. Candidates for the Award are selected by a committee under the chairmanship of the Rector Magnificus of the TU/e, the CTO of Royal Philips and the CEO of Signify research.

Gilles Holst

The general theme chosen for these lectures reflects the important contribution of Dr. Gilles Holst (1886-1968) to the development of research and technology in the Netherlands: ‘the development of applied science, particularly mathematics and the natural sciences, for the benefit of industry on the one side and their implications for society on the other.’

In his own academic career Holst played an essential part in the discovery of superconductivity by Nobel laureate H. Kamerlingh Onnes, whilst working at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. However, Gilles Holst will be first and foremost remembered as the founding director of the famous ‘Nat Lab’, the Philips Physics Laboratory in Eindhoven, where he worked between 1914 and 1946. During his lifetime, Gilles Holst was chairman of two committees that were instrumental in establishing the University of Technology in Eindhoven in 1956.

Eindhoven region

The Eindhoven Region, often referred to as Brainport Eindhoven is Europe’s leading innovative top technology region and home to Royal Philips, Signify, NXP semiconductors and ASML. Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) has according to Times Higher Education World University Ranking the highest score for collaboration with industry in the field of academic and scientific research. One of TU/e distinguished emeriti was Edsger W. Dijkstra, one of the most influential members of computing science’s founding generation and Turing Award winner 1972.

After the Lecture, the rector magnificus will present the Holst Memorial Lecturer with the Holst Memorial Lecture Award, a honorary medal designed by Dutch sculptor Jos Reniers. To honor the laureate, a dinner with speakers, management of Philips Research, Signify and TU/e and the Scientific Committee will be organized.

Award winning speaker 2019

The Holst Memorial Lecture Award Committee nominates prof.dr.ir. Joseph Braat for his important contributions in the field of Imaging Optics. Joseph Braat provided essential contributions that enabled, but reach far beyond optical recording (e.g. CD, DVD). These can be seen as a scientific and technological base for some of the technologies that would launch the successes of the so called Brainport Eindhoven region, including Imaging Optics in Wafer Steppers that drives Moore’s law in the Semiconductor Industry. His work still proves to be important for new ventures in Digital Pathology, Automotive Lighting and Smart Lighting.

Holst Memorial Lecture: ‘Optical imaging, the diffraction limit and methods to surpass it’

Joseph Braat (professor emeritus TU Delft and former scientist at Philips Research) will receive the Holst Memorial Lecture Award 2019 for his important contributions in the field of Imaging Optics on 21 November 2019 at TU Eindhoven.