Prof. Joseph Rosen Wins Inaugural Lohmann Holography Award
BGU researcher recognized by Springer Nature’s Applied Physics B for innovations advancing the field of computational holography
Prof. Dr. Joseph Rosen, a leading figure in optical engineering and computational imaging from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), has been awarded the inaugural Lohmann Holography Award by the scientific journal Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics.
The new award honors Prof. Adolf W. Lohmann, one of the founders of modern holography and optical information processing. It recognizes researchers whose work has made a transformative contribution to holography and its applications in optical science. The 2025 award was presented to Prof. Rosen at the International Conference on Applied Physics and Imaging (ICAPI), held at the University of Tartu’s Institute of Physics in Estonia.
A member of BGU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Prof. Rosen has spent nearly three decades at the University advancing the frontiers of digital holography and computational optics. His pioneering research has produced several landmark innovations that have reshaped the field.
Among his most influential contributions are Fresnel Incoherent Correlation Holography (FINCH), developed in 2007—a method that allows digital holograms to be recorded using white light—and Coded Aperture Correlation Holography (COACH), introduced in 2016, which enables holographic imaging of objects illuminated by incoherent light. He later refined this approach with Interferenceless Coded Aperture Correlation Holography (I-COACH), simplifying the system by removing the need for wave interference. His subsequent work on non-linear reconstruction (2018) further expanded the possibilities of digital holography and computational image processing.
Prof. Rosen’s research, conducted at BGU’s Faculty of Engineering Sciences, bridges fundamental optical physics with practical imaging technologies that have implications for microscopy, biomedicine, and remote sensing. His work exemplifies Ben-Gurion University’s strength in combining scientific creativity with applied innovation.
Credit: Nils Austa and CIPHR project grant agreement No. 857627
Reflecting on the honor, Prof. Rosen said:
“I am deeply grateful to the committee of Applied Physics B for selecting me as the first recipient of the Lohmann Holography Award. This award honors one of the greatest pioneers of computational holography and encourages today’s scientists to pursue new breakthroughs in optical information processing.”
Born in Haifa, Israel, Prof. Rosen earned his B.Sc., M.Sc., and D.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. After postdoctoral research in the United States—including at the Rome Laboratory of Hanscom Air Force Base and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)—he joined Ben-Gurion University in 1996.
Since then, he has helped establish BGU as a center of excellence in optical engineering and imaging science. Prof. Rosen is a Fellow of OPTICA (formerly the Optical Society of America) and of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE).
The Editor-in-Chief of Applied Physics B described Rosen as “a leading figure in the imaging community whose outstanding contributions have set the course for modern computational holography.”
