Awards

Academic Fellowships

2023: Elevated to Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), Class of 2023, for having “demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.” NAI Fellow status is nationally recognized as the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors. [NAI]

2022: Elevated to ARVO Silver Fellow (Class of 2023) by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) after more than 27 years of service to the ophthalmic & vision science community to continue to serve as a role model and mentor for individuals pursuing careers in vision and ophthalmology research and to further ARVO’s vision "...to advance research worldwide into understanding the visual system and preventing, treating and curing its disorders,” which includes advancing basic and clinical knowledge and serving as the leading international forum for vision research and the primary advocate for vision science worldwide. “ARVO is the largest and most respected eye and vision research organization in the world. Our members include nearly 10,000 researchers from over 75 countries.” [ARVO]

2020: Induction as Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) "for achievements in vision science for the blind and tele-ophthalmic healthcare worldwide."

2018: Induction as Fellow of the Prognostics and Health Maintenance (PHM) Society"The PHM Society recognizes Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink as one of the preeminent researchers in the fields of PHM for Autonomous Systems and Human Health & Performance. As such, he serves as the Sector Lead on “Human Health & Performance” to help the Society expand into this evolving field. Dr. Fink’s service to the Society has been exemplary: He was a Luminary Speaker for PHM 2013, serves on the Editorial Board of IJPHM since 2014, is the Guest Editor of the IJPHM Special Issue “PHM for Human Health & Performance” since 2017, and is a Panel Session Chair since 2016. Dr. Fink holds numerous leadership roles in professional societies, such as IEEE, SPIE, and PHM Society. He is appointed General Conference Chair of PHM 2019 in Scottsdale, AZ. Overall, Dr. Fink’s R&D and innovation achievements have been extraordinary: He has over 240 publications (journal, book, and conference contributions), 6 NASA Patent Awards, as well as 19 US and international issued patents (a dozen more pending) in the areas of autonomous systems and biomedicine. Dr. Fink is the co-founder of two start-up companies in vision care. Moreover, he is an AIMBE Fellow, Senior Member IEEE, and the 2015 da Vinci Fellow and 2017 ACABI Fellow of the University of Arizona."


2012: Induction as Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) “for outstanding contributions in the field of ophthalmology and vision sciences with particular focus on diagnostics and artificial vision systems”


Academic Senior Memberships

Senior Member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society


Academic Memberships (in alphabetical order)

Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE)

Member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)

Member of the German Physical Society (DPG)

Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Member of the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Society

Member of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE)


IEEE Honors & Awards


2006: 1st place (World Champion) of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) International “Huygens Probe“ Optimization Competition, held at the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) 2006 in Vancouver, BC, Canada from July 16-21, 2006



NASA Honors & Awards

2010: NASA Patent Award for “Inverse Tomographic Approach to Create Arbitrary Sidewall Geometries in 3D using LiGA Technologies”


2010: NASA Patent Award for “Automated objective characterization of visual field defects in 3D”


2010: NASA Patent Award for “Multi-agent autonomous system and method (3/3)”

2010: NASA Patent Award for “Multi-agent autonomous system (2/3)”


2010: NASA Patent Award “Optically powered and optically data-transmitting wireless intraocular pressure sensor device”


2009: NASA Patent Award for “Multi-agent autonomous system (1/3)”



2009: NASA Space Act Board Award for “Field-Deployable Integrated Air-Ground Multi-Agent Autonomous Remote Planetary Surface Exploration”
 

   
2006: NASA Techbrief Award for “Spectral retrieval and degeneracy analysis by means of Evolutionary Computational Methods (ECM)“, Terrile, Fink et al.


2006: NASA Techbrief Award for “Stochastic Evolutionary Algorithms (Simulated Annealing) for Deployment Path Planning & Optimization for Joint-based Robotic Limbs“, Fink et al.


2006: NASA Techbrief Award for “Efficient Optimization of Low-Thrust Spacecraft Trajectories“, Lee, Fink et al.


2006: NASA Techbrief Award for “Evolutionary Computing Methods for Retrieving Spectral Data“, Terrile, Fink et al.


2004: NASA Techbrief Award for “Field-Deployable Integrated Air-Ground Multi-Agent Autonomous Remote Planetary Surface Exploration“, Fink et al.



2002: NASA Space Flight Awareness (SFA) Launch Honoree Award for work in support of NASA’s human spaceflight program
. “This award is one of the highest presented to NASA and industry and is for first-level management and below. This award is presented to employees for their dedication to quality work and flight safety. To qualify, the individuals must have contributed beyond their normal work requirements to achieve significant impact on attaining a particular human space flight program goal; contributed to a major cost savings; been instrumental in developing modification to hardware, software, or materials that increase reliability, efficiency, or performance; assisted in operational improvements; or been a key player in developing a beneficial process improvement.” [https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/sfa/aac/honoree-award]


R&D Magazine Honors & Awards

  
2009: Co-winner of R&D Magazine’s R&D 100 Editors’ Choice Award 2009 for the DOE-funded Artificial Retina Project


2009: Co-winner of R&D Magazine’s R&D 100 Award for the DOE-funded Artificial Retina Project


Other Honors & Awards

2023: Received a Special Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives by the Honorable Congressman Juan Ciscomani in honor of Dr. Fink's election by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) to the Class of Fellows 2023

2023: Recipient of the inaugural UArizona “University Faculty Service Award” bestowed by the University of Arizona Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost: “This award recognizes University of Arizona faculty who have made exceptional contributions to our service mission, within their department or college, across campus, or in their scholarly community around the world.” This award is recognized with a one-time grant of $7,500.

2023: Recognized with the 2023 SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award "for pioneering, sustained contributions to the development of transformational opto-medical examination and device technologies, with particular focus on visual prostheses for the blind, ophthalmology, and tele-ophthalmology." The SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award recognizes 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). This award is recognized with a $2,000 honorarium + $2,000 in travel support.

2021: Co-winner of $200,000 DOE/NREL-sponsored E-ROBOT Prize.

2021: Elected Chair of the Committee of Eleven (C11) of the University of Arizona

2020: Elected Vice President of the PHM Society unanimously by the Executive Board of Directors of the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Society.

2020: Received inaugural Scott Clements Most Valuable Person (MVP) Award of the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Society"Starting in 2018, leading up to the PHM Conference in 2019, and in the post hoc year 2020, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink has served the PHM Society in several ways and on several levels. He led as Guest-Editor the first ever Special Issue on "PHM for Human Health & Performance" for the International Journal of Prognostics and Health Management (IJPHM). He was instrumental in achieving the listing of IJPHM in Clarivate's Web of Science Core Collection in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), thereby finally putting IJPHM on the radar screen worldwide. Dr. Fink helped organize the first ever "PHM for Precision Agriculture" Panel at PHM 2019, and established and led the Panel on "PHM for Human Health & Performance" over the last several years. Moreover, he helped solicit the ongoing Special Issues on "PHM for Human Health & Performance II" (Lockhart et al. as Guest Editors) and "PHM on Blockchains" (Gulati et al. as Guest Editors) following the PHM 2019 Conference. On the PHM Society leadership level, Dr. Fink has been a member of the Fellow and Lifetime Achievement awards committee for 2019 and 2020; he has been the Sector Lead for "PHM for Human Health & Performance"; and, as of 2020, Dr. Fink is one of 9 Executive Committee members of the Board of Directors."

2018: Elected Member of the Committee of Eleven (C11) of the University of Arizona

2017: Named ACABI Fellow“The designation of ACABI Fellow formally recognizes faculty that are strongly active in innovation related to ACABI." ACABI is the Arizona Center for Accelerated BioMedical Innovation funded by Tech Launch Arizona, College of Engineering, and Arizona Health Sciences Center at the University of Arizona.

2016: Recipient of University Excellence in STEM Diversity Award: "This award honors a member of the University community (e.g., faculty, staff, reserach) who has gone above and beyond in encouraging interest and diversity in STEM fields."

2016: Elected Senator of the Faculty Senate of the University of Arizona

2015: Named da Vinci Fellow for “innovative, productive and highly recognized engineering research," which is amongst the highest awards recognizing scholarly achievements in the College of Engineering, University of Arizona, recognized with a one-time grant of $10,000

2014: Led University of Arizona NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers) Chapter to take 1st place at a national NSBE Undergraduate Technical Research Competition for robotic pipeline inspection in March at the NSBE 40th Annual Convention in Nashville, TN


2011: "Thank You Note" from Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Research and Technology) Marilyn Millter Freeman for participating and presenting at the 27th Army Science Conference 2010 in Orlando, Florida


2009: Letter of Recognition from California State Senator Carol Liu for co-winning the prestigious R&D Magazine's R&D 100 and R&D 100 Editors' Choice Awards

2005: Silver Humie Award, awarded to the Evolutionary Computation Group at JPL, for demonstrating Human Competitive Performance (Humie Award) for “Evolutionary Computational Techniques for the Automated Design of Space Systems” from the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) held in Washington DC.


1997: Ph.D.-degree in Theoretical Physics, summa cum laude, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Tübingen, Germany


 

2000 – Present: Media and Press Media Features