Tingye Li to be Honored at OFC/NFOEC 2013

A special memorial symposium honoring the late Tingye Li will take place March 18 at the 2013 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) in Anaheim.

The symposium, “A Brief History of Optical Communications: A Symposium in Memory of Tingye Li,” will honor the photonics pioneer, who passed away last year (See: Photonics Pioneer Tingye Li Dies).

Li worked at AT&T Bell Labs for more than four decades before his retirement in 1998 and is renowned for his contributions to lightwave technology and optical fiber communications. He and his team at Bell Labs developed the world’s first (sparse channel) wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system. The use of WDM and optical amplifiers changed the paradigm of network economics and is considered to be of revolutionary significance in the history of lightwave communications.

The event will summarize the history of modern optical telecommunications with special reference to Li’s contributions. The speakers, introduced by Alan Willner of the University of Southern California, will be Li’s professional colleagues, including Rod Alferness, University of California, Santa Barbara; Joe Campbell, University of Virginia; Tom Koch, University of Arizona; and Herwig Kogelnik, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent.

“Tingye’s career spanned the entire history of modern optical telecommunications,” said symposium organizer Bob Jopson of Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent. “This symposium will give his colleagues, industry peers and all those who have learned from his incredible achievements an opportunity to come together and revisit history through the lens of Tingye’s work.”

In addition to Jopson, the symposium is being organized by Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent staff Andy Chraplyvy and Bob Tkach.

For more information, visit: www.ofcnfoec.org