Michal Lipson facts for kids

Michal Lipson (born in 1970) is an American physicist. She is famous for her important work in a field called silicon photonics. This is a way to use light instead of electricity to carry information in computer chips.

Since 2019, Dr. Lipson has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences. This is a group of top scientists in the United States. In 2025, she also became a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2010, she received a special award called the MacArthur Fellowship. This award is given to very talented people who show great creativity.

Dr. Lipson used to be a professor at Cornell University. Now, she is a professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University. She has also helped start several companies. In 2009, she co-founded PicoLuz, which works on silicon nanophotonics. In 2019, she co-founded Voyant Photonics, which develops new lidar technology. Lidar uses light to measure distances, like in self-driving cars. In 2022, she co-founded Xscape Photonics to help make AI and ML hardware faster. From 2021 to 2023, she served as the president of Optica, a leading society for optics and photonics.

Education and Learning Journey

Michal Lipson started her university studies at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. After two years, she moved to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. There, she earned her first degree, a BSc in physics, in 1992.

She continued her studies at Technion, getting her MSc in 1994 and her PhD in 1998. Her PhD research was about how light and matter interact in tiny spaces. After finishing her PhD, she worked at MIT for two years. Then, in 2001, she joined Cornell University.

What is Silicon Photonics?

Dr. Lipson is best known for her work in silicon photonics. Imagine computer chips that use light instead of electricity to send information. This can make devices much faster and use less energy. Silicon photonics uses silicon, the same material found in computer chips, to guide and control light.

She helped develop many important parts for these light-based chips. These include tiny guides for light (waveguides), devices that change light signals (modulators), and sensors. In 2004, she published a very important paper about a type of waveguide called a Slot-waveguide. This paper has been used by many other scientists in their work.

Dr. Lipson was also the first to show how to make light signals stronger in silicon. This was a big step towards building optical amplifiers using silicon. Her work has greatly improved how signals are sent and processed in tiny circuits.

Her research has appeared in top science magazines like Nature and Nature Photonics. She continues to explore new areas like optical metamaterials and smaller, more efficient light modulators.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Michal Lipson has received many awards for her groundbreaking work:

• 2005: National Science Foundation Career Award
• 2010: Blavatnik Award
• 2010: MacArthur Fellow – a very prestigious award for creative people.
• 2013: Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – recognized for her work on tiny light devices.
• 2015: Named a top 1 percent highly cited researcher in Physics by Thomson Reuters. This means her work is often used by other scientists.
• 2017: R. W. Wood Prize from Optica.
• 2018: Received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Trinity College Dublin.
• 2019: IEEE Photonics Award
• 2019: NAS Comstock Prize in Physics
• 2019: Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
• 2021: OSA John Tyndall Award for her advances in integrated light devices.
• 2025: Elected member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Important Research Papers

Dr. Lipson has written many important papers that have helped advance the field of silicon photonics. Here are some of the topics she has explored:

Frequency Combs

• She worked on creating tiny devices that can produce many different colors of light at once. These are called "frequency combs."
• One of her papers showed how to make a battery-operated frequency comb generator. This could be very useful for portable devices.
• Another paper described an "on-chip dual-comb source" for spectroscopy. This helps scientists study materials using light.

Ultralow-Loss Silicon and Silicon Nitride

• Her research has focused on making silicon and silicon nitride materials that lose very little light. This is important for efficient light-based circuits.
• She published papers on "low loss etchless silicon photonic waveguides." These are tiny light guides that are very efficient.
• Her work also includes making high-quality ring resonators. These are circular devices that can store light for a long time.

Modulation in Silicon

• Dr. Lipson has also researched how to control light signals in silicon. This is called "modulation."
• Her work helps in understanding how to scale down devices for tiny computer connections.