The Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship was established in 1998 to honour Michael John Kidger, a well-respected educator, design software developer and member of the optical science and engineering community.

The scholarship awardee chosen for 2012 is Fabian Duerr, a Ph.D student in the Department of Applied Physics and Photonics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The award will be presented to Fabian by Tina Kidger at SPIE's Optical Systems Design Symposium, 26 to 29 November 2012, Barcelona, Spain.