Henry Sodano Named 2022 SPIE Fellow

Aerospace professor Henry Sodano has been recognized as a 2022 SPIE Fellow for his professional accomplishments in research on smart materials and adaptive structures and his contributions to SPIE throughout his career.

Since 1955, SPIE has recognized 1,600 Fellows, adding a cohort of around 80 members in 2022. Each invited member is a researcher of distinction who has made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging. They are honored for their technical achievement and for their service to the general optics community and to SPIE in particular. 

With a primary appointment in the Aerospace department, Sodano also holds appointments in the Materials Science and Engineering and Macromolecular Science and Engineering Departments. His research lies in advanced aerospace materials with focus on composite materials, multifunctional materials, additive manufacturing, ceramics and nanotechnology. His laboratory uses a cross-disciplinary approach to enable rapid advancement in the current state of the art of advanced materials and structures.

Sodano has worked with SPIE since he was a graduate student at Virginia Tech, spending a considerable amount of time developing and leading conferences for the society. His research has morphed over the years from structural dynamic controls of lightweight structures and energy harvesting to material development, synthesis and processing. One of his major contributions is in multifunctional materials, combining different components to create multiphase materials with unique properties.

Sodano says, “This is a wonderful recognition of my work and contributions in the field. SPIE is traditionally an optics community and my research on smart materials represents a small segment of the society. Given the smaller subset of the SPIE Fellows, I’m especially honored.”