The AILU Award

1997 – 2019

This award was made to recognise individuals who had made an outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK. The AILU Award was presented to an individual for significant contributions to laser materials processing, preferably contributions that had a wider benefit for the industrial laser user community.

Previous Award Winners

2019 – John Powell
The 2019 AILU Award was presented to John Powell of Laser Expertise by Lin Li, AILU President 2017-2019. John has an outstanding track record in the field of laser materials processing. As one of the AILU founders and longtime leader of the Jobshop Special Interest Group, he has demonstrated his strong commitment to AILU and to the UK’s laser community.

 

2017 – Andrew Kersley
Andrew Kersley received the AILU Award for being one of the foremost innovators in laser technology and applications that the UK has produced. His invention of the “automatic pre-ionization” technique for rare gas halide excimer lasers whilst he was still a graduate student at Oxford led directly to the founding in 1977 of Oxford Lasers Ltd.

 

 

2015 – Paul Hilton
TWI Technology Fellow Paul Hilton received the AILU Award for his outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK. Paul has served twice as AILU President, the only person to have done so.

 

 

2013 – John Bishop
The winner of the 2013 AILU Award, established in 1997, to ‘honour an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK’ has been awarded to John Bishop.

 

2011 – Janet Stoyel
The winner of the 2011 AILU Award to ‘honour an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK’ has been awarded to Janet Stoyel for her contribution to the application of lasers to the discipline of Textiles, Art, Media and Design (AMD).

 

2010 – David Payne
The 2010 winner of the AILU Award is Professor David Payne FRS, CBE, Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at Southampton University. The Award recognises the major contribution that David has made in the development of industrial laser materials processing in the UK, both in his inventions in the field of fibre lasers and also for his role in the establishment of SPI Lasers in 2000 to exploit the technology developed by the ORC.

 

2009 – Brooke Ward
Brooke Ward wins coveted AILU Award Every year the Association of Laser Users (AILU) presents an award to recognise an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK. The winner of the 2009 Award is Brooke Ward of Europtics Partnership in Goring, in recognition of his pioneering work on measurement standards and optics for laser beam propagation and his outstanding contribution to the industrial use of CO2 lasers in the UK.

 

 

2008 – Tim Weedon
Tim Weedon wins 2008 AILU award. The AILU Award is presented each year to recognise an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK. The 2008 winner is Tim Weedon in recognition of his successful pioneering efforts to introduce Nd:YAG-based machining systems into the UK, starting in the early 1980s, and for his being a tireless champion of appropriately applying laser based manufacturing.

 

 

2007 – Malcolm Gower & Phil Rumsby
In recognition of their pioneering work with Excimer laser processing and the successful development as founders of Exitech Ltd. – a truly world class laser systems company. Malcolm and Phil have been active in laser micromachining for nearly 20 years and their drive and enthusiasm has been a key factor in the expansion of the UK’s capability in industrial micromachining applications and systems.

 

2006 – David Stroud
For his outstanding contribution to the industrial use of lasers in the UK

 

 

2005 – Bill Steen
AILU’s first President

 

2004 – Denis Hall
Innovator of industrial lasers and their applications

 

2003 – Colin Webb
Entrepreneur and gas laser innovator. After receiving the Award Colin Webb wrote: “I feel very proud to be honoured by AILU in this way. The Association represents the UK?s forum for the community of those who use lasers to solve problems in real world engineering applications. I would like to think that together with my colleagues at Oxford Lasers Ltd we have made some contribution to this field.”

 

2001 – David Dyson
Innovator in slow axial flow industrial laser design

 

 

2000 – Martin Adams, Derek Russell & Frank van Rompuy
Developers of the first fast axial flow CO2 laser

 

 

1999 – Maurice Gates
Entrepreneur and pioneer of lasers for fine metal cutting

 

 

1998 – Jim Wright
Entrepreneur and pioneer of industrial Nd:YAG laser applications

 

 

1997 – Peter Houldcroft
Inventor of oxygen assisted laser cutting