ORA Engineer Mark Kahan Receives Steve Benton Memorial Award
January 2010 – The New England Section of the Optical Society of America (NES/OSA) has awarded Mark Kahan, ORA’s Director of Electro-Optical Systems Engineering, the Steve Benton Memorial Award for his contributions to the optics community.
Specifically, the award acknowledges Kahan’s long-standing commitment and dedication to nurturing science education in schools and local communities. In addition, the award acknowledges Kahan’s many contributions to professional societies, which include reviewing papers for several journals including those of the OSA and the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), chairing SPIE conferences, serving as secretary, vice president, president and chairman of the executive council of NES/OSA, and serving as a director of the Massachusetts Engineers’ Council and as an advisor to various Project Photon Efforts.
During his career, Kahan has served as lead optical systems engineer, chief engineer, or advisor on critical programs of high optical engineering content. This work has included successful contributions to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), where he helped configure architectures and designs of survivable sensors from the boost phase through terminal defense, the cryogenic IR TEAL RUBY optical system, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) redesign effort, where he served as advisor to the HST Board of Investigation. His independent assessment work continued in support of the Chandra and Spitzer Great Observatories, and currently includes work on WISE, Exoplanet Missions (KI, LBTI, SIM, & TPF), and new NASA initiatives like IRIS and the James Webb Space Telescope.
Kahan has received numerous awards and honors, including Itek Engineer of the Year, over half a dozen NASA Commendations, and awards for outstanding civic service. He is a Fellow of SPIE, has authored over two dozen technical papers, and holds several US patents.
About the Steve Benton Memorial Award
Steve Benton (1941-2003) was director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. A pioneer in holography, Benton is well known as the inventor of the rainbow hologram, which is often used on credit cards and magazine covers. Among his many outstanding achievements, Benton was a director, board member, president, vice-president, fellow, and founder of over 15 different national and international organizations in areas ranging from laser research to photography, holography, imaging, and visual science. He authored over four dozen publications and held over a dozen patents. Benton, who earlier had major roles at Polaroid, was also the Allen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Laboratory. Benton was active in a number of professional optics societies and served as president of the New England Section of OSA in 1976 and 1977. The Steve Benton Memorial Award was established in 2004 to recognize sustained and substantial contributions to the optics community in New England.
