![Dudley_Blackboard](https://www.global-understanding.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dudley_Blackboard.jpg)
is the initiator of the 2015 UN International Year of Year of Light & Light-based Technologies and chairs its Steering Committee. He is the head of optoelectronics and photonics research at the University of Franche-Comté at Besançon (France), has won numerous awards, including the Hopkins Leadership Award of the Optical Society of America and is co-laureate of an ERC Advanced Grant studying extreme events in nature. He served as the President of the European Physical Society (2013-2015).