The SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award is presented to recognize outstanding technical accomplishment in optics, electro-optics, photonic engineering, or imaging. The recipient(s) shall have contributed significantly to the advancement of one or more of these areas with specific demonstration(s) or application(s). Honorarium $2,000.
Aden Meinel was the founding director of the University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center and the Kitt Peak National Observatory. With his wife and research partner Marjorie Meinel, he also developed next-generation space-telescope concepts and pioneered the use of solar energy. In the 1980s they were hired as Distinguished Visiting Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where they helped develop next-generation space telescope concepts.