With the Optical Materials Express Emerging Researcher Best Paper Prize, the journal recognizes a student or early-career researcher who is the first author of a paper that a committee of OMEx editors judged to be outstanding. The 2020 prize goes to Simon Woska for his paper “Tunable photonic devices by 3D laser printing of liquid crystal elastomers”. The author list includes several Cluster Young Researchers and Principal Investigators. Furthermore, the research was supported by the recently established CZF 3D User Lab.