Dr. Daniel J Blumenthal is a Professor in the Department of ECE at UCSB, Director of the Terabit Optical Ethernet Center and heads the Optical Communications and Photonics Integration group. He is Co-Founder of Packet Photonics Inc. and Calient Networks. He holds 23 patents and has published over 460 papers in the areas of optical communications and optical packet switching, ultra-narrow linewidth integrated lasers, optical gyro sensors, ultra-low loss photonic integrated circuits, integrated atom cooling photonics, nano-photonics and microwave photonics. He is co-author of Tunable Laser Diodes and Related Optical Sources (New York: IEEE–Wiley, 2005). Dr. Blumenthal is a 2017 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), Fellow of the IEEE and Fellow of OSA. He is recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, OSA’s C.E.K. Mees Medal, and an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award. Blumenthal received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder (1993), the M.S.E.E. from Columbia University (1988) and the B.S.E.E from the University of Rochester (1981).

Blumenthal has pioneered ultra-low loss silicon nitride and tantala waveguides, photonic integrated circuits and their applications. His work includes integrated ultra-narrow sub-Hz linewidth SBS lasers, highly integrated indium phosphide photonic circuits, fiber optic communications and optical packet switching, optical gyroscopes, microwave photonics, optical signal processing and ultra-fast techniques, and extending photonic integrated technologies into the visible wavelength range for applications including atom cooling, time keeping, and Raman spectroscopy.