Currently the John C. Malone Professor of Applied Physics at Yale University, Hui Cao also leads Yale Engineering’s Cao Research Laboratory. Cao’s interests and activities lie in the areas of mesoscopic physics, complex photonic materials and devices, nanophotonics, and biophotonics. She has conducted experimental studies on unconventional lasers — including random lasers and chaotic microcavity lasers — and established their applications in speckle-free imaging, multi-modality microscopy, ultrafast random number generation, and parallel lidar. Another research focus is coherent control of light transport in diffusive media and multimode fibers, with applications to deep-tissue imaging and endoscopy. In addition, Cao has been creating and controlling complex light fields and customizing the intensity statistics of laser speckle patterns for structured illumination microscopy. In addition to her fundamental studies on complex, chaotic, and disordered systems, she has harnessed disorder for photonic device applications.
An SPIE Fellow Member, Cao has a longtime involvement with the Society. She has held various roles, including conference committee program member and conference organizer, as well as referee for SPIE journals. She has presented at a range of SPIE conferences — including Optics + Photonics, Photonics West, and Photonics Europe — and will be a keynote speaker at Photonics West in 2026.
“Professor Hui Cao is an outstanding and exceptionally creative scientist, engineer, and scholar,” says ETH Zurich Professor of Physics Ursula Keller. “Based on her pioneering contributions, I invited Professor Cao to present a laser seminar at ETH Zurich, where I had the pleasure of getting to know her better. In my opinion, she is undoubtedly a scientist of the highest caliber and distinction, demonstrating remarkable creativity in her research. She is internationally renowned for her numerous scientific breakthroughs and their applications, reflected by her impressive publication record and high citation impact in areas such as random lasers, optical microcavities, photonic crystals, and their applications in biomedical imaging, projection, and cryptography.”
Meet the other 2026 SPIE Society Award winners.
