William D. Wagner Award

The William D. Wagner Award, established in 2003, is presented annually to a person in the field of national and international worker health and safety who is an outstanding example of commitment and dedication to the creation and dissemination of occupational exposure values (OEVs).

D. Jack Lund devoted his professional career to U.S. Army medical research and development from 1961 to 2008. His career accomplishments have had a profound impact on setting human exposure guidelines to lasers and other optical radiation sources. His work provided an understanding of the ocular effects of laser radiation, established optical radiation and laser exposure guidelines, assisted in the specification, development, and assessment of eye protection for personnel, and facilitated the use of laser systems by assuring their safe use. Mr. Lund served most recently (until retirement in 2008) as Chief of the Laser Technology and Biophysics Group of the U.S. Army Medical Research Detachment of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research located at Brooks AFB in Texas.

Mr. Lund holds a B.S. degree in physics from Western Illinois University (1961) with graduate studies in physics at Temple University (1964–1972). Mr. Lund worked as a research physicist at the Frankford Arsenal, Philadelphia, PA from September 1961 to August 1975 where he was involved in the design, development and evaluation of the first U.S. Army laser rangefinders and laser countermeasure systems. In 1968, Mr. Lund was selected as one of the original professionals for the Joint Army Laser Safety Team established at Frankford Arsenal to study laser bioeffects. He continued his research on the biological effects and hazards of lasers with that group as they relocated to the Letterman Army Institute of Research in San Francisco, CA in 1975 and to Brooks AFB, TX in 1992.

Mr. Lund is the author and co-author of numerous papers and reports on laser bioeffects. His research describing the effects of Erbium, GaAs diode, and Neodymium laser radiation is a primary basis for current laser permissible exposure limits. His research to assess the hazards of the gallium-arsenide lasers used in military training devices resulted in engineering changes to enhance the safety of such equipment and produced an empirical method for assessing the hazards of repetitive pulses that was adopted by national and international laser safety standard committees. He designed an optical tracking device that forms the basis for numerous laboratory and field measurements of pursuit tracking performance in the presence of laser glare. Mr. Lund is a member of ARVO, SPIE, and LIA. He has been a consultant to many U.S. government agencies and the UK and Israeli Defense Force on laser bioeffects, protection, and safety issues. He serves on five subcommittees of the American National Standards Institute Z136 Committee for the safe use of lasers, is co-chair of the Z136.7 Subcommittee and an appointed consultant to Study Committee IV of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection.

Previous Award Recipients

2009 — B. Dwight Culver, MD
2008 — Masayuki Ikeda, PhD, MD
2007 — Gerald V. Coles, CChem
2006 — Ernest Mastromatteo, CD, MD, DPH, DIH, FABPM (Occ Med), CCBOM, MFOM (London)
2005 — Vera F. Thomas, PhD
2004 — Daniel L. Johnson, PhD
2003 — Elizabeth K. Weisburger, ScD, PhD