Juris Upatnieks

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Juris Upatnieks (born May 7, 1936 in Riga ) is a Latvian- US-American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer of holography .

Upatnieks and his parents fled the Soviet occupation from Latvia to Germany. In 1951 the family emigrated to the USA. He attended high school in Akron , Ohio and then studied electrical engineering at the university there ( University of Akron , Bachelor 1960). He then conducted research at the Institute of Science and Technology at the University of Michigan , where he completed his master's degree in electrical engineering in 1965. From 1973 to 1993 he worked at the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan while serving as an adjunct professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor . There he led a laboratory course in optics until 1996. From 1993 to 2001 he was a consultant at Applied Optics in Ann Arbor. He was also a researcher in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan from 1996 to 2001.

In 1964 he presented the first holograms in the USA with Emmett Leith and published about them with Leith in a series of works from 1962 to 1964.

Upatnieks holds 19 patents (2009). For example, he invented a targeting system for rifles based on holographic principles.

In 1975 he received the RW Wood Prize from the Optical Society of America and in 1976 the Holley Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers . In 1976 he was Inventor of the Year for the American Association for the Advancement of Invention and Innovation . He is a member of the Optical Society of America and the International Society for Optical Engineering, as well as an external member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, whose Grand Medal he received in 1999.

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personal data
SURNAME Upatnieks, Juris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian-American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga