Electrical and computer engineering professor Alan Bovik received a top honor from two academic societies.

The Society for Imaging Science and Technology and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, awarded Bovik the Imaging Scientist of the Year Award for his research regarding image and video quality.

“I don’t think of awards as achievements but rather as recognition of achievement,” Bovik said. “This award is nice since it comes from both academic and industry societies, so it recognizes both the theoretical and practical aspects of our work.”

He is also the director of the Laboratory for Image and Video Engineering in the Center for Perceptual Systems, where he is involved in many research studies.

“We are currently studying human stereo vision to create models that we can use in algorithms that predict or optimize 3D visual quality in 3D movies, television and, yes, your smart phone, which will soon have a 3D display without special glasses,” Bovik said.