2023: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink has been elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), Class of 2023, for having “demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.” NAI Fellow status is nationally recognized as the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors. [NAI]
2023: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink podcast-interviewed by Arizona Science on AZPM/NPR: "Research that helps our eyes see better." He describes how electrical stimulation of the optic nerve can advance the visual experience for the blind. Prof. Wolfgang Fink spoke with Leslie Tolbert, Ph.D., Regents Professor emerita in Neuroscience at the University of Arizona.
2022: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink and the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory featured on KOLD News 13 on disruptive navigation technology he and his laboratory have devised to help visually impaired people move through the world more safely and efficiently: Visual Impairment Subtle Touch Aid (VISTA).
2021: Prof. Wolfgang Fink with a group of neuroscience and engineering students and a blind colleague prototyped a device to help visually impaired people move through the world more safely and efficiently: VISTA - Visual Impairment Subtle Touch Aid.
2021: Prof. Wolfgang Fink is a finalist in the U.S. Department of Energy's "Envelope Retrofit Opportunities for Building Optimization Technologies Prize," or E-ROBOT Prize. Prof. Fink co-created wall-EIFS, a patent-pending robotic concept that can retrofit buildings by installing insulation, thus cutting down carbon emissions. "Retrofitting the outside of a building is usually very labor-intensive," Fink said in the KOLD 13 interview. "You have to build a scaffold, lots of people have to be on a scaffold, it's highly manual. So the idea is to replace that with a robotic approach."
2020: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink received the inaugural Scott Clements Most Valuable Person (MVP) Award of the PHM Society: "Starting in 2018, leading up to the PHM Conference in 2019, and in the post hoc year 2020, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink has served the PHM Society in several ways and on several levels. He led as Guest-Editor the first ever Special Issue on "PHM for Human Health & Performance" for the International Journal of Prognostics and Health Management (IJPHM). He was instrumental in achieving the listing of IJPHM in Clarivate's Web of Science Core Collection in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), thereby finally putting IJPHM on the radar screen worldwide. Dr. Fink helped organize the first ever "PHM for Precision Agriculture" Panel at PHM 2019, and established and led the Panel on "PHM for Human Health & Performance" over the last several years. Moreover, he helped solicit the ongoing Special Issues on "PHM for Human Health & Performance II" (Lockhart et al. as Guest Editors) and "PHM on Blockchains" (Gulati et al. as Guest Editors) following the PHM 2019 Conference. On the PHM Society leadership level, Dr. Fink has been a member of the Fellow and Lifetime Achievement awards committee for 2019 and 2020; he has been the Sector Lead for "PHM for Human Health & Performance"; and, as of 2020, Dr. Fink is one of 9 Executive Committee members of the Board of Directors."
2020: Invitation-only speaker and expert-participant at the "Can Chronic Diseases Be Reversed?" Symposium organized by Shalesh Kaushal MD, PhD, Comprehensive Retina Consultants, February 14-15, 2020 at the Innisbrook Golf & Spa Resort, Palm Harbor, FL. World-renowned doctors, scientists, and researchers get together for a symposium about the new frontier of medicine - reversing chronic diseases. Topics to be discussed include heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s disease, stem cell therapies, gut health, clinical genomics and the reversal of neurodegenerative conditions.
2019: Agenda of the upcoming 11th Annual Conference of the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Society, Scottsdale Resort at McCormick Ranch, September 21-26. The conference brings together industrial, academic, and government leaders in unmanned vehicles and autonomous systems, wind energy, oil and gas, aerospace, transportation, automotive, precision agriculture, commercial space, human health & performance, smart manufacturing, and artificial intelligence (AI). The professional society represents the interests of many high tech industries important to Arizona’s current economy and future growth. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink is the General Conference Co-Chair.
2019: On behalf of the SPIE Board of Directors and the Membership Committee, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink has been elected to the grade of Senior Member of SPIE.
2018: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink inducted as Fellow of the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) Society. "The PHM Society recognizes Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink as one of the preeminent researchers in the fields of PHM for Autonomous Systems and Human Health & Performance. As such, he serves as the Sector Lead on “Human Health & Performance” to help the Society expand into this evolving field. Dr. Fink’s service to the Society has been exemplary: He was a Luminary Speaker for PHM 2013, serves on the Editorial Board of IJPHM since 2014, is the Guest Editor of the IJPHM Special Issue “PHM for Human Health & Performance” since 2017, and is a Panel Session Chair since 2016. Dr. Fink holds numerous leadership roles in professional societies, such as IEEE, SPIE, and PHM Society. He is appointed General Conference Chair of PHM 2019 in Scottsdale, AZ. Overall, Dr. Fink’s R&D and innovation achievements have been extraordinary: He has over 240 publications (journal, book, and conference contributions), 6 NASA Patent Awards, as well as 19 US and international issued patents (a dozen more pending) in the areas of autonomous systems and biomedicine. Dr. Fink is the co-founder of two start-up companies in vision care. Moreover, he is an AIMBE Fellow, Senior Member IEEE, and the 2015 da Vinci Fellow and 2017 ACABI Fellow of the University of Arizona."
2018: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink is a founding member of the Board of Directors and the Chief Science Officer of the recently founded non-profit Mars Agricultural Research Consortium (MARSAG). MARSAG is an organization whose members include businesses, academic institutions, and government agencies. The consortium aims at exploring advanced technologies for developing sustainable agriculture on Mars. In particular the goals are: (1) Research and development of technologies used for sustainable growth of agricultural products in the martian environment; (2) Development of technologies to build infrastructure necessary to sustain martian agricultural practices; and (3) Public awareness of potential for becoming a multi planet species.
2017: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink named ACABI Fellow for the 2018 and 2019 academic years. “The designation of ACABI Fellow formally recognizes faculty that are strongly active in innovation related to ACABI.”ACABI is the Arizona Center for Accelerated BioMedical Innovation funded by Tech Launch Arizona, College of Engineering, and Arizona Health Sciences Center at the University of Arizona.
2015: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink podcast-interviewed by Arizona Science on AZPM/NPR: "Laying Eyes on Mars." He talks about what Artificial Vision and Autonomous Robots have in common. Prof. Wolfgang Fink spoke with Leslie Tolbert, Ph.D., Regents Professor in Neuroscience at the University of Arizona.
2015: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink elevated to IEEE Senior Member grade.
