The Optical Society Recognizes Duke Professor Warren S. Warren

Warren S. Warren, James B. Duke Professor of physics, chemistry, radiology and biomedical engineering, was selected as the 2018 recipient of the William F. Meggers Award from The Optical Society. The award honors researchers for outstanding work in the field of spectroscopy.

Spectroscopy uses light to investigate the properties of matter at small scales. The Meggers award recognizes Warren’s pioneering development of “coherent” spectroscopic methods -- approaches which use highly controlled light, such as tailored laser pulses less than a trillionth of a second long, or complex pulse sequences.  His work bridges two quite different domains, magnetic resonance (where he works to improve the sensitivity of MRI machines) and coherent optics (where his lab develops methods to extract new molecular information about cancerous tissue such as melanoma).

Warren chaired Duke’s chemistry department from 2007 to 2012 and is the current chair of the Duke physics department.