Professor Martin Dawson
Institute of Photonics
Personal statement
Professor Martin D. Dawson FRS FRSE FIEEE FOSA FInstP is a physicist known for his work on lasers and compound semiconductors. He is Director of Research in the University of 51cg’s Institute of Photonics, which he helped establish 28 years ago, and he was also appointed inaugural Head and Scientific Director of the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (Fh-CAP), the UK's only Fraunhofer research centre, in 2012. Martin has over 35 years’ experience of applied research gained in academia and industry in the UK and USA and he has been involved in the formation and technical development of a number of spin-out businesses, most recently including mLED and Neuro-VLC. He gave the Rank Prize Lecture in 2014 and the Edwards Lecture in 2023 and he has received awards including Gabor Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics; Aron Kessel Award of the IEEE Photonics Society; Nick Holonyak Jr Award from Optica/OSA; Global Solid State Lighting Award of Outstanding Achievement from ISA; Distinguished Service Award from the IEEE Photonics Society. He and his group have twice been awarded the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters Best Paper Award (2019 and 2022). He and his colleagues' contributions were recognised in the award of the 2023 Queen's Anniversary Prize to the University of 51cg for 'Excellence, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Photonics'.
Prize And Awards
- Recipient
- 2026
- Recipient
- 2024
- Recipient
- 1/11/2023
- Recipient
- 1/2/2023
- Recipient
- 15/7/2022
- Recipient
- 2022
Publications
- , Johnstone Graeme E, Dehkhoda Fahimeh, , Henderson Robert K, , ,
- Optics Express Vol 34, pp. 23803-23816 (2026)
- , , , Gao Qian, Tan Hark Hoe, Jagadish Chennupati, ,
- Nanotechnology Vol 37 (2026)
- , McKendry Jonathan, Babadi Sina, Osahon Isaac, Younus Othman, Ruschel Jan, Rass Jens, Einfeldt Sven, Haas Harald, , ,
- 15th International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks and Digital Signal Processing 15th International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks and Digital Signal Processing (2026)
- , , , Xie Enyuan, McKendry Jonathan, Cheng Chen, Sagar Jaya, , , Joshi Siddarth Koduru, , Haas Harald, Henderson Robert,
- 4th International Conference on UV-LED Technologies & Applications (ICULTA 2026) (2026)
- , Johnstone Graeme E, Dehkhoda Fahimeh, , Henderson Robert K, , ,
- (2026)
- , Toon Miles, Ghosh Saptarsi, , , Kappers Menno, , Oliver Rachel A,
- Optics Letters Vol 51, pp. 993-996 (2026)
Professional Activities
- Participant
- 16/7/2026
- Speaker
- 24/6/2026
- Contributor
- 5/2026
- Advisor
- 2026
- Advisor
- 2026
- Participant
- 25/10/2025
Projects
- Herrnsdorf, Johannes (Principal Investigator) Dawson, Martin (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2026
- Haas, Harald (Principal Investigator) Dawson, Martin (Co-investigator) Herrnsdorf, Johannes (Co-investigator) Tavakkolnia, Iman (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2023 - 30-Jan-2026
- Strain, Michael (Principal Investigator) Dawson, Martin (Co-investigator) Herrnsdorf, Johannes (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2023 - 30-Jan-2024
- Herrnsdorf, Johannes (Principal Investigator) Dawson, Martin (Co-investigator) Gray, Johnathan (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2021 - 01-Jan-2025
- Strain, Michael (Principal Investigator) Dawson, Martin (Co-investigator) Cohen, Steven (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2020 - 01-Jan-2024
- Strain, Michael (Principal Investigator) Dawson, Martin (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2020 - 31-Jan-2023