Research Award for Sustained Excellence

2010 winner Glenn M. Light is currently the director of the Sensor Systems and NDE Technologies department at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). He received his B.S. in 1972 from McMurry College and an M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Texas in 1974 and 1978, respectively.

Over the last 31 years at SwRI, Light has developed sensors, systems and new techniques for nondestructive testing (NDT) of materials and structures. He has applied this effort to metals, composites and ceramics. His expertise includes ultrasonic testing (UT) technology and transducer design, eddy current probe design, digital radiography, computed tomography, infrared thermography and shearography. Light has successfully applied NDT methods in the field for nuclear-plant fuel pins, pressure-vessel studs and bolts, pump shafts and turbine disks. He has developed the first retirement-for-cause NDT system designed to inspect F-100 engine components using UT and eddy current technology for the U.S. Air Force. He also developed NDT technology for evaluating the bond quality of adhesively bonded joints.

Light is a former chair of the ASNT Research Council. In addition, Light has presented and published more than 145 papers on various NDT-related topics and been awarded 15 patents in the field. He holds ASNT NDT Level III certification in UT and RT.

Research Award for Innovation

2010 winner Jaswinder S. Sandhu is the president of Santec Systems, Inc. and is best known for his pioneering work in developing acoustography, a novel ultrasound imaging method. Sandhu has dedicated most of his professional career to developing acoustography for various industrial and medical applications. Sandhu is currently collaborating with various aerospace companies to develop acoustography to provide dramatically faster nondestructive testing of composites. Sandhu’s dedicated effort earned him the Best Paper Award in 2001 by SPIE, formerly known as The International Society for Optical Engineering.

Sandhu is the recipient of more than 15 patents and has authored more than 40 papers and reports in the field of acoustography. Sandhu received a B.S. (with honors) in physics from the University of Sussex (UK) in 1975 and an M.S. in solid state physics from the University of London (UK) in 1976. He then went on to do research work in the field of ultrasonics and received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of London (UK) in 1980.

After graduate school, Sandhu joined the ITT Corporation and then went to work for a private venture for some time. In 1989, Sandhu decided to start his own company, Santec Systems, Inc., to develop and commercialize acoustography.

About the Research Award for Sustained Excellence

About the Research Award for Innovation

 

 

 

 

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