Thomas Koch to direct Center for Optical Technologies

Thomas L. Koch, vice president for technology platforms at Agere Systems, has been named the first permanent director of Lehigh’s two-year-old Center for Optical Technologies.

Koch, who was also named professor of electrical and computer engineering, succeeds James Hwang, professor of ECE, who had served as interim director of the center.

His appointment comes six months after the Center received a $15-million grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and a gift from Daniel E. Smith Jr. ‘71, president and CEO of Sycamore Networks Inc., who endowed Koch’s position.

Koch’s full title will be the Daniel E. ‘39 and Patricia M. Smith Director of the Center for Optical Technologies.

“We are thrilled to have a person of Tom’s caliber and stature in the industry lead the center,” says Dean Mohamed S. El-Aasser. “With his vision, his wealth of experience in optics, his international contacts and his proven success record leading research initiatives and teams, Tom will enable the center to realize its full potential.”

“It’s truly an honor for me to be able to play a role here – it’s a great team and a great mission,” Koch says.

The recent gifts follow previous grants of $1 million from the state, $1 million from the Federal government, and $2.5 million from the U.S. Army.

In addition to the $15 million state grant, Lehigh is making a comparable investment of its own in the center. The Center for Optical Technologies is a partnership of Lehigh, Penn State University, Northampton Community College, Lehigh Carbon Community College and the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The center will also work with local and national companies to advance research and applications of optical and optoelectronic technologies.

“We are targeting not only research, but educational outreach programs and deep relationships with our industry partners,” he says.  “We find that many commercial concerns are now turning to institutions like ours for our scientific depth, facilities, and longer-term outlook. And we are diversifying applications well beyond telecommunications.”

Koch earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton and his doctorate in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology, then joined the research organization of Bell Labs, where he was a member of technical staff in Holmdel, N.J.

He worked on Bell Labs’ first high-performance DFB lasers with record-setting transmission rates and basic advances in tunable lasers. Later, he led the research team that developed the first generation of semiconductor photonic integrated circuits (PICs). In 1995-96, Koch was vice president of research and development at SDL Inc., where he managed a broad portfolio of semiconductor laser research.

As vice president at Agere, Koch was responsible for research and development of the underlying technologies required to support the company’s optoelectronic and IC product portfolio.

In the international scientific community, Koch has served on numerous conference, technical and governance committees for the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the IEEE, and has chaired several major conferences, including the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC), the IEEE LEOS Annual Meeting, and the IEEE International Semiconductor Laser Conference.

Koch has also received the Distinguished Lecturer Award and the William Streifer Award for Scientific Achievement from the IEEE LEOS, and is a Bell Labs Fellow, and a Fellow of the OSA and the IEEE. He holds 32 patents and has authored 130 journal publications, 147 conference presentations, and several book chapters. He recently co-edited the book Optical Fiber Telecommunications III with Ivan. P. Kaminow.

Also at the Center for Optical Technologies, Kimberly D.C. Trapp, former marketing operations director at Agere, has been appointed industry liaison officer. Trapp will be responsible for developing university-industry-government partnerships.

by Kim Plyler