2024 Presidential Rank Award - John Lehman

John Lehman is a senior research scientist whose team leads the world in carbon-nanotube based coatings for detectors used in earth and space radiometry used for weather and climate monitoring. His work extends and improves measurements of the Earth Energy Budget, a key climate record of the long-term balance between the amounts of energy Earth absorbs from the Sun and the amounts of energy Earth emits into space. Dr. Lehman’s team has also pioneered a revolutionary technology for measuring laser power, which works by detecting the pressure that light exerts on a mirror. His research supports US industry, quantum communications, manufacturing, and defense.

For more than a decade, Dr. Lehman led the Sources and Detectors Group in NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory, providing laser power and energy calibration services to the US and other parts of the world. Recent awards include the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award from SPIE, the R&D 100 Award, and two U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medals. He is a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany and Optica.

Dr. Lehman received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, his M.Eng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho, and his Ph.D in Applied Physics from the University of Kent in the U.K. He was awarded the Quantum Electronics and Photonics Ph.D. prize from the Institute of Physics (UK) for his dissertation. Dr. Lehman has organized workshops ranging from laser-based manufacturing, optical-power measurements for gravitational wave detection, and workforce development in the emerging quantum industry. He is also past President of the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair, Inc.