image: Stanford University Associate Professor of materials science and engineering, Guosong Hong, accepts the Impact of the Year Award at the Biophotonics Focus: Light-Based Technologies for Reproductive, Maternal, and Neonatal Health plenary during SPIE Photonics West on Sunday evening.
Credit: SPIE - Joey Cobb
BELLINGHAM, WA, USA – January 19, 2026 – SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, is celebrating the inaugural Biophotonics Discovery's Impact of the Year Award as well as its first recipient, Stanford University Associate Professor of materials science and engineering, Guosong Hong. Hong was officially honored at the Biophotonics Focus: Light-Based Technologies for Reproductive, Maternal, and Neonatal Health plenary during SPIE Photonics West on Sunday evening.
Hong is being honored in the technology development category for “significantly advancing the field of biophotonics,” based on research that he presented at the 2025 SPIE Photonics West’s BiOS conference. His presentation, “Achieving optical transparency in live animals via the Kramers-Kronig relations,” demonstrated his team’s success in developing a way to see organs within a body by making the overlying tissues transparent to visible light.
“This particular award means a lot to me,” says Hong, who is excited by the myriad possible applications of the research, from noninvasive diagnostic imaging of deep-seated skin cancers and more accessible venipuncture, to replacing the need for corneal transplants. “It says that our research, although it originated from a different insight, from the electromagnetic-tissue interaction, has had an impact beyond what we originally set out to achieve, reaching a broader community and benefitting more research directions.”
On his team were graduate student, Nick Rommelfanger, and postdoc researcher, Zihao Ou. Their research addresses one of the main challenges in biomedical optics, optical scattering – when light interacts with particles or irregularities making it deviate from its original path. Their method of eliminating that effect by reducing light-scattering and offering a more uniform light-directing approach will have a deep and significant impact on biophotonics research and clinical translation.
Hong, who received his BSci in Chemistry from Peking University and his PhD in the same subject from Stanford in 2014, joined Stanford Materials Science and Engineering and Neurosciences Institute as an assistant professor in 2018. He is the recipient of many other recognitions including the Materials Research Prize for Young Investigators from ETH Zürich; the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science; the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; the Biomedical Engineering Society’s Rising Star Award; the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award; the NIH Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) Award; the MIT Technology Review ‘35 Innovators Under 35’ Award; the Science PINS Prize for Neuromodulation; the National Science Foundation CAREER Award; the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching; and the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award.
The Impact of the Year award is administered and presented by SPIE journal Biophotonics Discovery. The Gold Open Access journal is the premier venue to highlight the realized promise of novel and emerging biophotonics technologies and their impacts on basic and clinical science and medicine. This award was created to recognize outstanding contributions that have significantly advanced the field of biophotonics through one or more of the following areas: technology developments; clinical or translational breakthroughs; and regulatory or agency-level impacts.
"I'm incredibly excited about the new award,” says Biophotonics Discovery Editor-in-Chief Darren Roblyer, a Boston University professor in the Biomedical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering departments. “It's different from other awards in our community and recognizes a contribution made within the last three years, highlighting how the award as well as the journal are capturing cutting-edge discoveries and advancements in our field. Guosong Hong is the perfect recipient of our inaugural award. His discovery in tissue clearing is making a big splash, and we want to recognize his important contribution."
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