first worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an associate professor of physics in 1961 and has remained Francis Wright Davis Professor Emeritus of physics since 1964. He continued researching into the area of "optical electronics", which envisions scaling electronic elements in such a way that they would be capable of handling frequencies as high as visible optical radiation frequencies. Javan died on September 12, 2016. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie, and by their two daughters, Lila and Maia. Honors Member of Sigma Xi National Academy of Sciences Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow 1962 - Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute for "conception and development of the first continuous optical laser which utilised Neon and Helium" 1966 - Fanny and John Hertz Foundation Medal 1966 - Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship 1975 - Frederic Ives Medal of the Optical Society of America 1979 - Humboldt Foundation Fellowship 1993 - Albert Einstein World Award of Science of the World Cultural Council 2006 - Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame 2011 - SPIE Fellow 2012 - First member of Eurasian Academy In 2007, Javan was ranked Number 12 on The Daily Telegraphs list of the "Top 100 Living Geniuses". See also MIT Physics Department List of Iranian scholars Higher Education in Iran List of lasers List of laser articles References Notes Bibliography External links US Patent 3,149,290 Profile on the National Inventors Hall of Fame website "Ali Javan: History of laser" Robert J. Scully and Marlan O. Scully, "Ali Javan", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2019) 1926 births 2016 deaths Albert Einstein World Award of Science Laureates Alborz High School alumni American physicists Columbia University alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Physical Society Iranian Azerbaijanis Iranian emigrants to the United States Iranian expatriate academics 20th-century Iranian inventors Laser researchers Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences People from Tehran University of Tehran alumni