Bob has been on the Azumo technical advisory board for 5+ years and now we welcome him with a permanent role as Azumo’s newest Principal Optical Scientist.
Bob has over forty years of optical engineering experience – inventing, developing, and optimizing innovative optical engineering and metrological solutions for the most difficult system-level problems in flat panel video image displays and in directionally-lighting luminaires. He’s recognized as one of the world’s leading technologists in directional-illuminating LED light guide systems, including those used in front-lighting reflective image displays and in backlighting transmissive LCD’s. Azumo looks forward to Bob’s continuing innovations in light guiding optics and display metrology helping its optics team propel LCD 2.0 lighting technologies into the new era of display technology, and over time, into emerging opportunities for Azumo technologies in equally-compelling commercial lighting markets.
Prior to Azumo, Bob was Principal Scientist of Display Illumination & Metrology for CLEARink, a reflective display technology company. He also served as Principal Engineer and Technical Director of Commercial Lighting at Qualcomm where he developed the LED front light used with a MEMS-based video display technology known as MIRASOL. Qualcomm had acquired his LED lighting company, Digital Optics International, LLC. Prior to that, he had been the founding CEO of the light guide-based LCD backlighting company, NiOptics Corporation, eventually acquired by 3M, its major investor. 3M’s lighting products influenced by NiOptics technology still generate over $3B in sales annually. Before NiOptics, Bob had been Allied-Signal’s Director of Engineering for Fiber Optic Products, Founding Director of the Battelle Memorial Institute’s Optoelectronics Manufacturing Technology Consortium, and Xerox Corporation’s Program Manager for Electro-optic Materials. While at Battelle, he also helped found Photonics Integration Research Incorporated (PIRI), the Battelle, Mitsubishi and Nippon Telephone & Telegraph (NTT) joint venture in optical communications components later acquired by SDL/JDS Uniphase for over $2B.
Bob has more than 100 publications and presentations, over 100 patents and allowed applications.
Bob earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California Berkeley and holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
