ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Venkatesh Narayanamurti  is Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy, Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Physics Emeritus at Harvard University. He was formerly: Director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School (2009-2015); John L. Armstrong Professor and Founding Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (1998-2008), and Professor of Physics and Dean of Physical Sciences at Harvard (2003-2006); Dean of the UCSB College of Engineering (1992-1998); VP of Research at Sandia National Laboratories (1987-1992); and researcher then Director of the Solid State Electronics Research Laboratory at Bell Labs (1968-1987). He obtained his PhD in physics from Cornell University in 1965, and his bachelor's and master's degrees in physics (in 1958 and 1960, respectively) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He has accumulated over 15,000 Google Scholar citations, and his Google Scholar h-index is 59. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected member of the U.S National Academy of Engineering, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and of the World Academy of Sciences. In 2018 he received the Arthur Bueche Award of the NAE “for seminal contributions to condensed matter physics and visionary leadership of multi-disciplinary research in industry, academia, and national labs that generated research and engineering advances.” He is also co-author, with Professor Tolu Odumosu (James Madison University), of “Cycles of Invention and Discovery” (Harvard University Press, 2016). He currently resides in South Chatham, MA. 

Jeffrey Y Tsao  is a Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories. He has a BS in math and MS in EE from Stanford; and a PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard. From 1981 to 1991, he was research staff at MIT-Lincoln Laboratory then Sandia where he studied laser microchemistry and semiconductor epitaxy, and authored the research monograph “Materials Fundamentals of Molecular Beam Epitaxy” (Academic Press, 1994) for which he won the Marin Marietta Author of the Year and Jefferson Cup Awards. From 1991 to 2001, he managed various semiconductor materials and device research departments at Sandia, including departments that pioneered vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) and InGaN metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). He also served as visiting lecturer at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering in Singapore and as VP of R&D at E2O Communications, a pre-IPO fiber communications company. From 2001 to 2015, he spearheaded white papers, reports and programs which helped set larger national and global research directions, including in solid-state lighting. Jeff is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Optical Society, and the Illuminating Engineering Society. Jeff has published over 175 articles/books/book-chapters; has accumulated over 13,000 Google Scholar citations; been granted 11 U.S. patents; authored/co-authored/co-edited 5 books; and has given over 105 invited/plenary talks. His Google Scholar h-index is 51. He currently resides in Albuquerque, NM.