Rajeev J. Ram, Director
Rajeev J. Ram is Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He heads the Physical Optics and Electronics Group within the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. He has worked in the areas of optoelectronic devices and optical and semiconductor physics for the last 14 years. His contributions have included the development of wafer fusion that led to the demonstration of the first electrical, telecom wavelength VCSEL in 1993, as well as the first demonstration of room-temperature, continuous-wave operation of a cascade semiconductor laser in 1999. Fundamental contributions have included semiconductor lasers without population inversion (1994), semiconductor polariton lasers (1996), and internally cooled semiconductor devices (2002). He has received awards for his research contributions from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research as well as MIT’s Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Fred Leonberger, Senior Advisor
Fred J. Leonberger served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of JDS Uniphase Corporation, a leading optical components supplier, from 1999 until his retirement in June 2003. He previously held a similar position at Uniphase Corporation prior to its merger with JDS Fitel in 1999. He joined Uniphase in 1995 upon its acquisition of UTP, a company he co-founded and served as General Manager. He has been active in optoelectronics for over 25 years, and has also held a variety of staff and management positions at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and United Technologies Research Center. He presently is the Principal of EOvation Technologies LLC, a technology advisory firm, and serves on the Board of Directors of RF MicroDevices, Inc. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.