College of Staten Island Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Dr. Sos Agaian has been named the recipient of the 2026 SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award, one of the international optics community’s most respected honors.
Presented by SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, the award recognizes outstanding technical accomplishment in optics, electro-optics, photonic engineering, or imaging. Recipients are selected for significant contributions that demonstrably advance one or more of these fields through innovation, application, or real-world impact. The award includes a $2,000 honorarium.
Dr. Agaian is internationally recognized for his pioneering research in imaging science, signal processing, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, with applications spanning biomedical imaging, remote sensing, pattern recognition, and data security. His work has had wide-reaching influence across academia, industry, and government research, reinforcing CSI’s growing reputation as a center for high-impact scientific inquiry.
“I am deeply honored to receive the 2026 SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award,” said Dr. Agaian. “This recognition reflects years of work at the intersection of human perception and computational modeling, and it is especially rewarding to see research in blind image quality assessment—automated systems that evaluate image quality in a way that mirrors human judgment without access to a reference image—emerge as a new field with real‑world impact. This work now supports advances across emerging technologies, including computer vision, robotics, autonomous systems, AI and machine learning, and medical imaging. I am grateful to the students, colleagues, and collaborators who made this work possible.”
The SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award is named in honor of Aden and Marjorie Meinel, whose careers helped shape modern optical science. Aden Meinel was the Founding Director of the University of Arizona’s Optical Sciences Center and of Kitt Peak National Observatory. Together, the Meinels advanced next-generation space telescope concepts, pioneered innovations in solar energy, and later served as Distinguished Visiting Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Dr. Agaian’s selection places him among an elite group of scientists and engineers whose work has transformed the field of imaging and photonics—areas that increasingly underpin advances in medicine, communications, national security, and artificial intelligence.
At CSI, Dr. Agaian is also known for his commitment to mentoring students and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. He was recently named a ScholarGPS® Highly Ranked Scholar—a prestigious distinction reserved for the most accomplished and influential researchers worldwide, ranking among the top 0.05% of scholars globally based on research productivity, citation impact, and scholarly influence.
For more information on the SPIE and Dr. Agaian’s latest distinction, visit the SPIE Website.
