Robert L. Byer

Robert L. Byer

Dr. Robert Byer, a founding member of CCST and Council Chair Emeritus, is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Applied Physics, at Stanford University. He has served as Chair of the Department of Applied Physics. Dean of Research, and Director of the Hansen Experimental Physics Lab at Stanford.

Byer received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Applied Physics from Stanford, 1969. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences; and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Lasers and Electro-optics Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Laser Institute of America and the Optical Society of America. He serves at President of the American Physical Society in 2012.

Dr. Byer is author of more than 450 technical publications, and is the holder of more than 50 U.S. Patents. Byer cofounded Quanta Ray Inc. in 1975 and Lightwave Electronics Corp. in 1984, and Mobius Photonics in 2005. His numerous honors and awards include the Ives Medal of the OSA, 2009; the IEEE Photonics Award 2009; the Willis E. Lamb Award, 2009; the A. L. Schawlow Award, Laser Institute of America, 1998; the R.W. Wood Prize, Optical Society of America, 1998; and the Quantum Electronics Award, Lasers and Electro-optics Society of the IEEE, 1996.