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Professor Al Bovik of Texas ECE has been selected to receive the 2019 Progress Medal from the Royal Society of Photography (RPS). The Progress Medal is the oldest and most prestigious honor in the field of photography, having been given annually since 1878. It is awarded in recognition of any invention, research, publication or other contribution which has resulted in an important advance in the scientific or technological development of photography or imaging in the widest sense. 

Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the AMOLF institute in the Netherlands have invented the first mechanical metamaterials that easily transfer motion effortlessly in one direction while blocking it in the other, as described in a paper published on Feb. 13 in Nature. The material can be thought of as a mechanical one-way shield that blocks energy from coming in but easily transmits it going out the other side.