Julio César Gutiérrez Vega is a Mexican physicist who has done pioneering work on wave propagation of optical fields; in particular, he introduced the Mathieu family of non-diffracting optical beams (with Sabino Chávez Cerda) and the Helmholtz-Gauss beams —a parabolic family of non-diffracting optical beams— with Miguel A. Bandrés. His research work is done with the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education’s (Tec de Monterrey) Optics Center, of which he is the director. This work has been recognized with membership in Mexican Academy of Sciences and Level III membership in the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores.