Beginning in 2020, three new annual SPIE awards will honor iconic leaders of optics and photonics, as well as those following in their footsteps: the second female winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, a pioneer of image science, and a timely recognition of proactive diversity initiatives in optics. In a rapidly-changing research landscape, these awards showcase two of SPIE’s key technical communities, and reflect the Society’s ongoing commitment to advocate for diversity and inclusion on a global level. Named for one of three 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics winners – and the second woman to win that accolade after Marie Curie – the SPIE Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award in Photonics recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of photonics and the development of innovative, high impact technologies. Goeppert-Mayer, who won the Nobel alongside J. Hans D. Jensen for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus, also outlined the possibility of two-photon absorption by atoms ...