OSA Board of Director Ekaterina Golovchenko is currently Director, Global Telecommunications Product Line Management at IPG Photonics, where she leads new market development and coherent optical transport platform design.

Having graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University, Golovchenko started her career at the Academy of Sciences of Russia, and in 1991 received her Ph.D. During this time, her passion was in nonlinear fiber optics, solitons, and femtosecond phenomena contributing to discovery of slowing down and delaying of optical solitons through higher order effects in femtosecond domain, and depicting a thorough picture of interplay between parametric and Raman effects in fiber.

In 1994, Golovchenko joined Prof. Menuyk’s group at the University of Maryland where she furthered her expertise in numerical modeling and nonlinear effects in fibers to study soliton’s frequency self-shift effects working together with Dr. Jim Gordon’s and Dr. Lynn Mollenauer’s groups in Bell Labs. 

In 1997, Golovchenko joined TE Connectivity business unit for subsea communications (TE SubCom).  During her 16 year tenure with TE SubCom, she was responsible for multiple development projects from system design simulator, to definition of strategic product directions, assessment of technical capabilities, and defining products to meet these needs. She led development, engineering, implementation and technical sales support for more than 20 global undersea fiber optic networks  from ultra-long haul trans-Pacific coherent systems to first submerged undersea OADM networks.  For her breakthrough contributions and technical excellence,

Golovchenko was named TE Connectivity Fellow in 2009.