Dr Kerry Vahala
Caltech

Kerry Vahala is Ted and Ginger Jenkins Professor of Information Science and Technology and Professor of Applied Physics at Caltech. He also received his Ph. D. (85) in Applied Physics at Caltech. His research on micro-resonators has led to wafer-based devices operating in the Q regime above 100 million and has also provided low-loss methods for coupling directly to optical fiber. This performance combination has made possible microwatt-threshold nonlinear Raman and Parametric sources with quantum-limited differential efficiencies and is being actively pursued as a route to cavity QED on-a-chip systems. Vahala is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and has served as topical editor for Photonics Technology Letters, the Journal of the Optical Society of America and the Journal of Semiconductor Science and Technology. He was program co-chair for CLEO 99 and General Chair for CLEO 2001. He was the first recipient of the Richard P. Feynman Hughes Fellowship and has also received both the Presidential Young Investigator and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Awards. In addition, he has been recognized three times by the Student Association at Caltech for excellence in teaching and mentoring. Vahala is co-founder and Chairman of Xponent Photonics, located in Monrovia , CA .