Plenary Speakers

John Pendry is a condensed matter theorist working at Imperial College London. His early work addressed electronic and structural properties of surfaces developing the theory of low energy diffraction, EXAFS, and of electronic surface states later moving on to studies of transport in disordered systems. In the mid 1990’s he turned his attention to metamaterials and proposed several structures which radically influenced the development of the field leading to the experimental discovery of negative refraction by the Smith group and later, also in collaboration with David Smith, the design of a cloak of invisibility. His investigation of negative refraction led to the discovery that it is theoretically possible to design a lens whose resolution is limited only by the perfection of manufacture, not by the well known Abbé law which limits resolution to the order of the wavelength. The technique of transformation optics which he pioneered has led to many applications in the field of plasmonics, particularly building on the perfect lens concept and showing how to concentrate light into sub nanoscale volumes. His most recent work is the topic of today’s talk and moves the study of metamaterials on to structures that vary in time as well as in space.

Paul Prucnal is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. He is best known for his work in Neuromorphic Photonics, optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) and the invention of the terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer (TOAD). Prucnal received his A.B. In mathematics and physics from Bowdoin College , graduating summa cum laud. He then earned M.S., M.Phil. and Ph. D. degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University. After his doctorate, Prucnal joined the faculty at Columbia University. As a member of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory, his seminal work in OCDMA initiated a new research field in which more than 1000 papers have since been published, exploring applications ranging from information security to communication speed and bandwidth. In 1988, he joined the faculty at Princeton University. Prucnal is author of the book, Neuromorphic Photonics, and editor of the book, Optical Code Division Multiple Access: Fundamentals and Applications. He has authored or co-authored more than 300 journal articles, 390 conference papers and 34 book chapters, and holds 28 U.S. patents. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. He was the recipient of the Gold Medal from the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Informatics at Comenius University, for leadership in the field of optics and numerous teaching awards at Princeton, including the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Distinguished Teacher Award of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Engineering Council Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Graduate Mentoring Award, the Walter Curtis Johnson Prize for Teaching Excellence.

Hui Cao is the John C. Malone Professor of Applied Physics, a professor of Physics, and a professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1997. Prior to joining the Yale faculty in 2008, she was on the faculty of Northwestern University from 1997 to 2007. Her technical interests and activities are in the areas of mesoscopic physics, complex photonic materials and devices, nanophotonics, and biophotonics. She authored or co-authored one monograph, twelve book-chapters, seven review articles and 260 journal papers. She is a Fellow of the APS, OSA, AAAS and IEEE.

Hong Q. Hou is Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Connectivity Group at Intel Corporation. His Group is responsible for delivering leadership hardware, software, and system products and technology, including Ethernet NICs and controllers, silicon photonics, Ethernet switches, and high-performance fabrics.

Prior to joining Intel in 2018, Hou was Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer for Fabrinet, and President and CEO of Emcore Corporation. Early in his career, he conducted research at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Sandia National Laboratories. Hou has over 200 publications in technical journals and seven U.S. patents. Hou holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.