Liang Gao, an associate professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, was elected as a fellow of Optica, an international professional society for advancing optics and photonics.
Gao, who leads UCLA’s Intelligent Optics Laboratory, was nominated for his research in ultrafast- and hyperspectral-optical imaging and biomedical optics. His research has potential implications in health care. He has published more than 70 journal articles, including one that highlights his technology’s capability to capture neurons firing.
A UCLA faculty member since 2020, Gao has previously been featured by WIRED for his research in bionic 3D camera systems. Some of the other honors he has received include the National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award for early-career investigators and the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award honoring faculty members in the early stages of their teaching and research careers.
Gao joins Optica’s 2024 class of nearly 130 fellows, who hailed from 26 different countries and were selected for their outstanding contributions to the society and its community through research, publication and education. Founded in 1959, the program has elected more than 2,800 fellows in the field of optics from around the world.