Dr. Pavel Cheben is a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Malaga, Honorary Adjunct Professor at Carleton University, Adjunct Professor at McMaster University and the University of Ottawa, and Guest Professor at the University of Zilina.

He earned an MSc in Microelectronics from Slovak Technical University and a PhD in Physics/Optics from the Complutense University of Madrid. He was appointed as the Director of the College in Integrated Optics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics of the United Nations, UNESCO (Trieste, Italy, 2014). He was also a visiting researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and University Paris Sud (Paris, France).

He was one of the lead scientists starting up Optenia Inc. and developed the first commercial echelle-grating wavelength multiplexer. Before joining the NRC, he was with the National Institute for Aerospace Technology of the Ministry of Defense, Spain (1992-97), where he was responsible for the establishment of the Laboratory of Space Instrumentation.

Dr. Cheben is a leading expert in integrated optics, silicon photonics, subwavelength nanophotonics, and biosensing. He introduced a new area of science that brings together metamaterial research and integrated photonics. He has co-authored more than 500 papers and book chapters, has 33 patent applications, and over 220 invited presentations.

His achievements were featured in many press releases, including in Nature, New York Times, Nature Science Update, Physics Today, Chemical and Engineering News, New Scientist, Ottawa Business Journal, Wirtschafts Woche e-Business, and El Pais, to name a few (see a comprehensive list below).

He is the recipient of the Order of the Republic, the highest honour in the Slovak Republic, bestowed by the President of Slovakia. The Scientific Council of the Slovak Academy of Sciences awarded him the International Prize, the Council’s highest international honor. He is the recipient of the prize from the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic.

He is also the recipient of the NRC Industrial Achievement Award (2001), NRC-IMS General Award (2007), NRC-ICT Outstanding Achievement Award (2017), NRC 2018 Excellence in Research Award (2018), the Council’s highest recognition of research excellence, and the Canada Public Service Excellence Award (2019), Canada’s Federal Government’s highest recognition.

He is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), Fellow of the European Optical Society (EOS), Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP), Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE). He is the only Canadian scientist elevated to the highest rank of the EOS and one of four scientists from North America.

He is the most published scientist of the National Research Council of Canada (2008-19, as per Scopus).