The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are pleased to announce the appointment of Stephen E. Ralph to the Glen Robinson Chair in Electro-Optics at GTRI, effective February 1, 2020.

The Chair was endowed in 1998 by Glen P. Robinson, Jr., a pioneer in satellite communications and electro-optics technology, and has since been a source of significant applied research, creating a strong program and accomplishments within GTRI.

Ralph’s appointment to the Glen Robinson Chair will complement his newly established joint appointment status within GTRI and ECE. Furthermore, the appointment provides a platform in which he will be able to work with organizational leadership and research faculty to develop and shape a world-class program in integrated photonics and electro-optics. Ralph will also focus on the performance of internal and sponsored research and will continue leading the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) to enhance the existing collaborative relationship that he has already established with GTRI and its Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL).

“The appointment of Dr. Ralph to this position will ensure that we continue to strengthen and maximize the interactions between the researchers in the Colleges and those in GTRI,” said Chaouki T. Abdallah, executive vice president for research at Georgia Tech. “Those critical collaborations are the foundation for a truly impactful research enterprise as Georgia Tech looks to address local, national, and global issues.”

A Fellow of the OSA and an elected member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Photonics Society, Ralph has been a member of the ECE faculty since 1998, and he has served as the director of GEDC since 2011. Ralph currently leads a research team of 10 graduate students focused on wideband optical systems including machine learning, integrated photonics, microwave photonics, and quantum communications. He has published more than 325 peer-reviewed papers in journals and conference proceedings and holds 15 patents in the fields of optical communication and signal processing. 

Prior to his career at Georgia Tech, Ralph held a postdoctoral position at AT&T Bell Laboratories and was a visiting scientist with the Optical Sciences Laboratory at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He received his B.E.E. degree from Georgia Tech in 1980 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1988.