Professor Martin Dawson FRS

Martin Dawson is a physicist and technologist who has made wide-ranging contributions to the development, application and market introduction of semiconductor-based photonic and optoelectronic technologies. He is Director of Research at the University of Strathclyde's Institute of Photonics and he is the Head and Scientific Director of the UK's first Fraunhofer research centre.


Martin is an internationally acknowledged pioneer of micro-LEDs, a compound semiconductor technology of major interest worldwide for new forms of versatile and high-performance electronic visual displays. He has made broad and foresighted contributions to photonics based on single crystal diamond and demonstrated diamond's unique characteristics for optical devices including micro-optics and lasers. He has made notable contributions to the development of high-power and high-brightness optically-pumped semiconductor lasers, making extensive demonstrations of their exquisite performance as tuneable sources for spectroscopy and nonlinear optics.


Martin's work has been recognised by the Nick Holonyak Jr Award from Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America), the Global Solid State Lighting Award of Outstanding Achievement from the International Solid State Lighting Alliance, the Aron Kressel Award of the IEEE Photonics Society and the Gabor Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics.

Professional position

  • Professor, Institute of Photonics, University of Strathclyde

Subject groups

  • Astronomy and Physics

    Condensed matter incl softmatter, liquids, nano-materials, Lasers and optoelectronics, Semi-conductors

  • Engineering and Materials Science

    Communications incl information theory, Engineering, electronics, Instrumentation, Materials science (incl materials engineering), Opto-electronics (inc lasers, optical microscopy/imaging, fibre optic component), Engineering, semiconductors

Committees Participated Role
Industry Fellowships Joint Panel January 2026 - December 2028 Member
Industry Fellowships Joint Panel January 2025 - December 2027 Member
Research Grants Committee: Physical Sciences January 2024 - December 2026 Member
Science, Industry and Translation Committee January 2023 - December 2025 Deputy Chair
Royal Society Wolfson Fellowships Committee January 2023 - December 2025 Member
Sectional Committee 2: Astronomy and physics October 2022 - September 2025 Member
Commonwealth Science Conference Grants Committee July 2016 - June 2017 Member
International Exchanges Committee July 2011 - December 2015 Member