Erik P G Ingelstam earned his Ph.D. in physics in 1937 from Uppsala University. Beginning his career as a teacher at the Chalmers Institute of Technology in 1937, Ingelstam later joined the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1943. In 1949 he established and became the first director of the Institute of Optical Research. He served as vice president of the International Commission of Optics from 1953 to 1959 and as its president from 1959 to 1962. In 1973, he received OSA’s C.E.K. Mees Medal.

Ingelstam passed away in 1988.