Engineering professor elected to Optical Society of America

Alastair D. McAulay, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA.) The fellowship is the most prestigious honor for researchers in the fields of optics and photonics.

McAulay was cited for “pioneering research in optical networks, optical computing architectures, advanced photonic components, MEMs-based parallel switching and spatial light re-broadcasted optical computing cells.”

The OSA election process is highly selective—the number of members recommended for election each year is less than 0.5 percent of the society’s total membership.

McAulay, who is retiring at the end of this semester, is one of three OSA fellows currently serving on the faculty in the department of electrical and computer engineering at Lehigh. The others are Filbert J. Bartoli, the department chair, and Yujie Ding.

McAulay began his career at Lehigh in 1992 as the Chandler Weaver Professor and Department Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, a role he held until 1997. He has written two books, including Military laser Technology for Defense (2011), which focuses on military applications of optical technology and laser technology, and Optical computer architectures (1991), a book that discusses how and why optics are used in computing.

Before joining the Lehigh faculty, McAulay served as a program manager for the design and simulation of Texas Instruments’ first optical computer from 1979 to 1986. Previously he had served as a project manager and project engineer at Westinghouse Electric and Honeywell Marine Systems.

During a sabbatical leave from Lehigh in 2000-01, McAulay served as vice president of research at All Optical Networks.