Speaker Profiles

Doug Baney, Department Manager, Keysight Laboratories, USA

Dr. Douglas Baney has been in the field of microwaves and photonics for the past 35 years. He worked as an R&D millimeter wave engineer in Hewlett-Packard’s Signal Analysis Division, and later transferred to Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, then Agilent Laboratories and now Keysight Laboratories where he conducted research in the areas of optical amplifier gain, noise figure, and spectral-hole burning measurement. Many of the optical amplifier test methods he developed are in use globally for production test of optical amplifiers. Other research he performed or directed includes Faraday-effect optical devices, up-conversion visible ZBLAN fiber lasers, optical reflectometry,  optical coherent reception, and advanced modulation format optical constellation measurement. He also led the R&D team that developed the first high-volume laser based mouse.

He is currently department manager in Keysight Labs responsible for research in microwave test, nonlinear microwave modeling, nanomeasurement, measurement automation, photonics measurement, and integrated photonics applications. He holds a Ph.D. from the Institut Mines et Télécom (Télécom ParisTech), Paris, France, an MSEE from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the BSEE from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. He served as General Co-Chair of OFC, General Co-chair of OAA , OSA OFC Budget Committee, Tyndall Award Committee and is a Fellow of the IEEE.


Tymon Barwicz, Research Scientist, IBM, T.J. Watson Research Center, USA

Dr. Tymon Barwicz is currently leading silicon photonic packaging research at IBM. He received the B.Eng. degree in engineering physics from the Ecole polytechnique de Montreal, Canada, in 2000 and a joint M.Sc./Ph.D. degree in materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005. He joined the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 2006. From 2006 to 2010, he studied shape and dimensional control of sub-10-nm silicon nanowires. His current research aims at low-cost and scalable silicon photonic interfaces to single-mode fibers and lasers. He is author on more than 90 journal and conference publications as well as inventor on more than 40 patents.


Y.K. Chen, Director, Bell Laboratories, Nokia

Young-Kai (Y.K.) Chen, is a director at Bell Laboratories, Nokia, Murray Hill, New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. degree from Cornell University in 1988. From 1980 to 1985, he was with the Electronics Laboratory of General Electric Company. Since 1988, Dr. Chen has been with Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey. He was an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, and is an Adjunct Chair Professor at National Taiwan University and National Chiao Tung University. His research interests are in the areas of silicon and III-V photonics, coherent optical systems, and high capacity wireless and photonics systems. Dr. Chen is a Fellow of Bell Labs, IEEE and OSA, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.


Mike Hughes, Director of Product Management, US Conec, USA

Mike Hughes is the Director of Product Management at US Conec Ltd.  He has held engineering and commercial positions in multi-channel optical interconnect technology for over 15 years and has over 22 years of experience in copper and fiber optic connectors and cabling products. He currently has responsibility for the MTP® and MXC™ Connector platforms in addition to multiple customized, high-density optical interconnect solutions for silicon photonics and VCSEL based links.  Mike has served as a US National Committee contributing Expert to IEC SC86B.  He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University and Master of Business Administration degree from Wake Forest University.


Thomas Koch, Dean, College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, USA

Thomas L. Koch is Dean of the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona.  Previously he held Vice President positions in research and development at SDL, Lucent, and Agere Systems.  Prof. Koch’s research helped to advance semiconductor lasers for optical communications and physics-based modeling of system-level performance.  He was also an early pioneer in photonic integration technology at Bell Labs, including some of the earliest demonstrations of the powerful potential of this technology in tunable lasers, and WDM and coherent communications, and more recently he has contributed to the rapidly evolving field of silicon photonics.  Prof. Koch is a Fellow of Bell Labs, the OSA, and the IEEE, and his contributions have been recognized with the IEEE Sumner Award, the IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award, and election into the US National Academy of Engineering.


Kazuhiko Kurata, Senior Engineering Director/Sub-project leader, Photonics Electronics Technology Research Association (PETRA)

Kazuhiko Kurata, Senior Engineering Director/Sub-project leader, Photonics Electronics Technology Research Association (PETRA) Kazuhiko Kurata is the engineering director for business planning of new optical transceiver chip using silicon photonics and packaging technology. And he is the sub-project leader in Photonics Electronics Convergence Technology for Power-Reducing Jisso System for project in PETRA, where he is responsible for the development and realizing of photonics electronics convergence packaging technologies for future servers. Prior to PETRA, Kurata managed research and development of opt-electronics modules in NEC research and laboratories. Kurata has been developing several optical transceivers and packaging techniques more than 25 years at NEC (1985-2012).


Twan Korthorst, CEO, PhoeniX Software

Twan Korthorst did his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Twente (Netherlands) during the final stage of which he cofounded the Microflown Team, developing the world’s first particle velocity microphone. In 1996, he started as product engineer at Twente Microproducts (TMP). After the acquisition of TMP by Kymata, a Scottish-based communications solutions provider based on integrated optics, he occupied the post of Director Operations at Kymata Netherlands (later Alcatel Optronics Netherlands). Having been a Manager of Operations at DEMCON Advanced Mechatronics, Twan joined PhoeniX Software from August 2007 to become General Manager and later CEO. Today, he is a big promoter of photonic integration technologies and responsible for strategic partnerships with fabs, foundries, packaging providers and other software vendors to support the industry transitioning from R&D towards mass production.


Michael Liehr, CEO, AIM Photonics Inst., USA

Michael Liehr is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Institute for Manufacturing of Integrated Photonics. As SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology, Michael focuses on the creation of new business opportunities, and is responsible for the effective and efficient operation of the SUNY Poly core strategic 300mm semiconductor and packaging partnership engagements. Prior to this assignment, he led the Global 450mm Consortium through the start-up phase as the General Manager.


Peter O'Brien, Head of the Photonics Packaging Group at the Tyndall National Institute, Ireland

Dr. Peter O’Brien is Head of the Photonics Packaging Group at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, Ireland. He is also deputy director of the Irish Photonic Integration Centre, a €30M research center funded by Science Foundation Ireland. Dr O’Brien’s group focuses on the development of packaging solutions for Si- and InP-PICs, including novel fiber, source and electronic packaging techniques. His group has numerous international academic and industrial collaborations, and they support Si- and InP-PIC packaging through the Europractice and JEPPIX MPW foundry services. Dr O’Brien previously founded a photonics company developing biophotonic imaging products, which he sold in 2009. He was a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech, where he was involved in the development of submillimeter wave devices for remote sensing applications. He has a PhD and Masters from University College Cork, and a degree in Physics from Trinity College Dublin.


Richard Otte, President and CEO, PROMEX Industries, Inc.

Mr. Otte has been President & CEO of PROMEX INDUSTRIES INC. since 1995. PROMEX is an ISO 9001:2008, ISO  1348:2003 and ITAR registered manufacturing services provided specializing in onshore mixed technology assembly of medical and semiconductor products in its facilities in Santa Clara and San Diego California.  Before PROMEX he was the General Manager of AMP’s Kaptron Passive Fiber Optic Products Subsidiary in Palo Alto.  Prior to that he was President of Advanced Packaging Systems, a Raychem-Corning Joint Venture, and with other Raychem business units for 20+ years where he filled various positions, many related to product development for the electronics industry. 
 
Otte Chairs the iNemi Optoelectronics Roadmap Technical Working Group, represents iNemi on the MIT CTR Board, Chairs the Photonic Systems Manufacturing Consortium Roadmap Heterogeneous Assembly and Test TWG, is a member of the IEEE, IPC, OSA, SMTA, MEPTEC and the ITRS 2.0 A&P Roadmap sub-committee. Over 75 patents issued throughout the world list Otte as an inventor.
 
He has a BSEE and an MSEE from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University


Robert Patti, Founder and CTO, Tezzaron Semiconductor Corporation

Mr. Patti holds a BSEE/CS and BSPH from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He is the founder and CTO of Tezzaron Semiconductor Corporation. Tezzaron specializes in high performance 3D memory, employing wafer-level stacking of semiconductor sub-components. Mr. Patti provides system design and technical guidance to the Tezzaron staff. As time allows, he also performs consulting services in the areas of design troubleshooting and yield enhancement. To date, Mr. Patti has been actively involved in the design of over 100 ICs as well as portable PCs, set-top boxes, and other high volume products He is the former Vice Chairman of JEDEC Future Memories (DDR III) and recipient of the 2015 3D InCites Individual Achievement Award and the 2009 North American SEMI award for his pioneering work in the emerging technical area of 3D IC integration. Mr Patti holds 18 US Patents.


Katharine Schmidtke, Optical Technology Strategy, Facebook

Katharine is responsible for Optical Technology Strategy at Facebook. She has a Ph.D. In non-linear optics from Southampton University in the UK and completed post doctoral research at Stanford University. She has more than 20 years experience in the Opto-Electronics industry, including positions at Finisar, JDSU and New Focus.


Torsten Vahrenkamp, CEO, ficonTEC

Torsten Vahrenkamp is CEO and one of the founders of the company ficonTEC which is located in Germany, close to Bremen. When founding the company in 2001, the goal was to provide automatic and semi-automatic assembly and test solutions for the photonics industry. Torsten holds a diploma for Applied Laser Technologies which he got in 1998 at the University of Applied Sciences in Emden, Germany. During his further work at the Institute of Laser Technology in Emden he built a fully automatic laser lithography system for rapid generation of micro structures in submicron dimensions. This technology was used to generate the world’s first in-glass diffractive optics using ion exchange processes in gradient refractive index glass.