Rank Prizes

The Rank Prize for Optoelectronics supports, encourages, and rewards researchers working at the cutting edge of optoelectronics research,[1] initially (from 1976) awarded annually, now a biennial prize worth £100,000.[3] Optoelectronics relates to the interface between optics and electronics, and related phenomena.[2]

The Committee on Optoelectronics consists of the following people:[4]

• Donal Bradley CBE FRS (Chairman)
• Roberto Cipolla FREng[5]
• Martin D. Dawson FRSE
• Helen Gleeson OBE
• Anya Hurlbert
• Simon Laughlin FRS, neurobiologist[6]
• John Mollon DSc FRS
• Miles Padgett FRSE FRS
• Wilson Sibbett CBE FRS FRSE
• Maurice Skolnick FRS[7]

Past winners include:[3]

• 1978 – Charles K. Kao
• 1988 – T. Peter Brody
• 1995 – William Bradshaw Amos
• 1998 – Federico Capasso
• 2008 – Mandyam Srinivasan
• 2008 – Peter B. Denyer
• 2014 – Alf Adams
• 2018 – Jonathan C. Knight
• 2018 – Philip Russell
• 2018 – Tim Birks[8][9]

The Rank Prize for Nutrition is for research in human and animal nutrition (distinct from animal husbandry), and crop husbandry.[2]

The Committee on Nutrition consists of the following people:

• John Mathers PhD Hon FAfN (Chairman)
• Malcolm Bennett
• Michael Gooding
• Peter Gregory FRASE
• Sarah Gurr
• Anne-Marie Minihane
• Susan Ozanne
• Ann Prentice OBE PHD
• John Wilding

The Rank Prize for Nutrition was awarded at various intervals since 1976, but is now also awarded biennially, worth £100,000.[10]

In 2014 Australian biophysicist Graham Farquhar and the CSIRO agronomist Richard Richards were awarded the Rank Prize in Nutrition, for "pioneering the understanding of isotope discrimination in plants and its application to breed wheat varieties that use water more efficiently", which related to a discovery the pair made in the 1980s.[11][12][13][14]

Other winners include:[15]

• 1981 − Hugo Kortschak, Marshall (Hal) Davidson Hatch and Roger Slack, for "outstanding work on the mechanism of photosynthesis which established the existence of an alternative pathway for the initial fixation of carbon dioxide in some important food plants".
• 1982 − Hamish Munro, for his work on the protein metabolism of mammals.
• 1984 − Elsie Widdowson, for her work on the values of foods as nutrient sources, the effects of long-term undernutrition and starvation and the nature and control of the growth process.
• 1989 − Vernon R. Young, for his work on the amino acid metabolism of man.
• 1992 − Kenneth Blaxter, lifetime award given posthumously.
• 1995 – Richard Smithells and B.M. Hibbard, for "pioneering studies into the role of micronutrient deficiencies, principally folic acid deficiency, and neural tube defects".
• 2010 − Peter E. Hartmann[16] and Robyn Owens for their "research on human lactation, including methods for the non-invasive measurement of the rate of milk secretion".