Archives: Member Recognition

Frederick J. Leonberger was honored with the 2014 Connecticut Medal of Technology for his outstanding accomplishments in the field of photonics and fiber-­optics, primarily in the area of electro-­optic devices. Dr. Leonberger is Principal of EOvation Advisors, LLC, and retired Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of JDS Uniphase Corporation.

For almost 40 years, Leonberger has been a leading contributor to his field not only in the development of a variety of important optical devices, but in product and business strategy, commercialization and overall company leadership. The integrated optical modulators he pioneered have been used pervasively for over 15 years to encode data at billions of bits per second in long-­haul fiber optic networks. Similar modulator devices are widely used to transmit CATV signals. These devices are manufactured in Bloomfield and that business has had a substantial economic impact on Connecticut (valued at more than $500 million).

In his early career with the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Leonberger developed a breakthrough analog-­to-­digital converter device, which incorporated micron-­scale guided-­wave modulator integration on a single chip. He joined United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) in 1984 as manager of Photonics and Applied Physics. The major technologies developed in UTRC groups Leonberger led have all spawned commercial Connecticut businesses: United Technologies Photonics (UTP) in Bloomfield; CiDRA, in Wallingford; and DEOS, now part of Coherent, in Bloomfield. Aggregate revenue of these businesses over the past 15 years is estimated to exceed $1 billion.

In 1992, Leonberger co-­founded and became General Manager of UTP. In  1995, UTP was acquired by Uniphase Corporation and Leonberger went on to become Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of that company and continued in that role after the Uniphase/JDS Fitel merger. He retired in 2003 and founded EOvation Technologies (now EOvation Advisors), a technology and business advisory firm serving photonics and laser companies. In addition to advising senior management teams, he presently serves on the Board of Directors of four private venture-­funded photonics companies.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Leonberger holds a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT. He was elected to CASE in 1985 and to the National Academy of Engineering in 2000.

When Yaakov Bar-Shalom was a teenager in Romania, he enjoyed listening to the BBC or Voice of America, something which was considered “pretty dangerous under the Communist regime.” However, by the time he was nineteen, he and his family had emigrated to Israel, where after only four months, Yaakov had learned enough Hebrew to continue his studies and graduate Cum Laude from Technion in Haifa, Israel, where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree and later a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering. Following this, he earned his PhD from Princeton University.

Today, Yaakov Bar-Shalom is a University of Connecticut Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Marianne E. Klewin Endowed Professor in Engineering, and is the recipient of the 2012 Connecticut Medal of Technology for his work in improving the sensitivity of remote sensors used for surveillance in the presence of background noise or clutter. According to Anthony DeMaria, 2004 recipient of the Connecticut Medal of Technology and Chief Scientist at Coherent-DEOS, LLC, Professor Bar-Shalom is regarded as the “chief architect of probability-based methods for estimating the paths of moving objects.”

Professor Bar-Shalom notes that a turning point in his career came two years after he received his PhD and was working for a company on developing a tracking algorithm that could work in presence of “clutter.” At the time, his direct manager believed he was “wasting company time” and recommended that he be fired. Fortunately, the company vice president stepped in and asked a professor from a well known university to evaluate the work. The professor declared that Bar-Shalom’s algorithm “made sense,” thus saving his job! Professor Bar Shalom states that “the ultimate compliment I received from this professor was that he later used my results in another consulting job, with the appropriate credit given to me.” Before Professor Bar Shalom’s work in the early 1970s, the field of multiple target tracking was largely dependent upon ad-hoc algorithms with little theoretical foundation. In the mid-1970s, he introduced the Probabilistic Data Association and Joint Probabilistic Data Association, both of which were theoretically sound and practical for application.

Professor Bar-Shalom’s research has improved the sensitivity of remote sensors used for either radar or sonar surveillance. This is particularly significant for national defense because it permits early detection of approaching hostile targets, making a timely counterattack possible. Professor Bar-Shalom’s work also solved a very challenging problem for airports, which have numerous objects that can confuse a conventional tracking algorithm. The sensors based on his algorithms enhance air transport safety and are used by Raytheon in their airport surface detection radar systems operating at numerous airports from Boston to New Delhi.

Professor Bar-Shalom credits his high school math teacher, affectionately referred to as “M-squared” with first inspiring his interest in pursuing a mathematical career. “Fortunately, I managed to retain everything this math teacher taught.” After completing high school at age 16, Professor Bar-Shalom studied at the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania, for his first three college years. There, his professor, who taught Electromagnetics, showed him “the elegance of mathematical modeling and instilled in me the desire to pursue new ideas.”

Professor Bar-Shalom believes that “young people should develop the stamina to pursue the study of mathematics, science, and engineering because it is rewarding and is the key to society enjoying the benefits of modern technology.” He cites Theodore von Karman, an aerospace engineer awarded the first National Medal of Science, who said “Scientists discover the world that exists; Engineers create the world that never was.”’

As a second grader, Jonathan Rothberg spent a lot of time in the principal’s office. He struggled with reading and, too often, found himself in trouble with his music teacher. However, his mother’s belief that he would one day “do good science,” coupled with his father’s engineer’s emphasis on solving problems, formed the foundation for his later accomplishments. Of course, it didn’t hurt that that there was a chemistry laboratory in his basement where he spent hours experimenting, or that at thirteen, he was given one of the first “hobby” computers by his older brother Henry, and taught to program by his other older brother David. These childhood experiences cultivated his problem solving abilities. When he arrived at Carnegie Mellon University to begin his training as a chemical engineer, he discovered that he was “best at solving problems that no one had solved before.” Jonathan, whose early school life was marked by difficulty, was, by his junior year of college, sequencing DNA, and envisioning ways to do it better – much better. Today, Jonathan Rothberg, PhD, is best known for inventing a way to decode your genome — the biological “program” (the “book of life”) stored on the 23 pairs of chromosomes in each of your cells that makes you unique — and is the recipient of the 2010 Connecticut Medal of Technology.

After completing college, Dr. Rothberg attended Yale University, earning a PhD in biology. His thesis work — decoding a gene responsible for wiring the nervous system — appeared on the cover of the prestigious journal Cell. He realized that he “wanted to do this work on a big scale” and to develop medicines. To accomplish this, he started CuraGen. At CuraGen he was the first to completely map out how the proteins encoded in a genome functioned together (featured on the covers of Nature and Science) and develop drugs for the treatment of metastatic skin and breast cancer.

When his son Noah was born in 1999 and rushed, not breathing, to newborn intensive care, Jonathan realized he wanted to develop drugs based on personal genomes. While his son was in the intensive care unit, Dr. Rothberg invented the first fast way to sequence DNA and founded 454 Life Sciences. This technology allowed for decoding genomes at a rate never before possible, enabling the first sequencing of an individual human genome — that of James D. Watson, who co-discovered the structure of DNA.

Dr. Rothberg also initiated the Neanderthal Genome Project, cracked the mystery behind the disappearance of the honey bee, uncovered a mysterious virus killing transplant patients, and elucidated the extent of individual human variation — work recognized by Science magazine as the breakthrough of the year for 2007. The New England Journal described Dr. Rothberg’s sequencing innovation as enabling “The New Age of Molecular Diagnostic…” Science magazine called it one of the top 10 breakthroughs for 2008.

Recently, Dr. Rothberg has taken his research further with the creation of Ion Torrent. Ion Torrent is leveraging semiconductor technology to create the first “personal genome machine.” This invention of Dr. Rothberg’s, a sequencing machine on a chip, translates the chemical information in your genome directly to digital information, making genome sequencing an inexpensive and powerful part of medicine, much like the invention of the computer chip did for computing.

Dr. Rothberg is widely published, was twice named as The World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer, is an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and received The Wall Street Journal’s First Gold Medal for Innovation. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and serves on the board of trustees of Carnegie Mellon University. He is indeed doing “good science.”

Before Professor T.P. Ma began graduate work at Yale, he considered himself fluent in English. After all, he had excelled in English studies since eighth grade, and listened to American radio broadcasts of music and news. However, one day during a first-term math course taught by a British professor, T.P. arrived to class to find the room empty. He was confused. Where was everyone? Fortunately, he saw a classmate who explained that class was cancelled to provide study time for the next day’s major exam. T.P. was astounded, and spent that day and night preparing for the exam. Afterwards, he kept a radio by his bedside, falling asleep to late night talk shows to improve his listening skills. Now, almost forty years later, Professor Ma is not only fluent in English, but his outstanding contributions in the field of engineering render him one of the greatest scientists of our time and the 2008 recipient of the Connecticut Medal of Technology.

Tso-Ping Ma was born in the northwestern corner of China. Four years later, his parents fled Communism to settle in Taiwan, where he completed his education through college. After a year of military service, T.P. applied to Yale University, where he was accepted in 1969 and began work in semiconductor research. Professor Ma considers a serendipitous introduction to the “visionary” Richard Barker, his future mentor and advisor, to be a critical turning point in his career. Professor Barker enthusiastically embraced Ma’s interest in semiconductor research, arranging for grants from Bell Labs. At that time, the industry standard for gate dielectrics on semiconductors was 1,000 angstroms and “no one believed that they could be condensed to anything less than 100 angstroms.” T.P.’s thesis research on electron tunneling through ultra-thin gate dielectrics proved that it was indeed feasible to create a gate dielectric on semiconductors that functioned at 20 angstroms.

Semiconductors transmit electronic information. Gate dielectrics are insulators for this electron transmission, and as Professor Ma explains, “the insulator is like a wall upon which electrons are thrown, some electrons will seep through if the wall is too thin.” The task for Professor Ma was to strengthen the silicon dioxide gate dielectric with minimum quantities of nitrogen, allowing information to be most efficiently transmitted, without electrons leaking in the process. His work paved the way for high-k dielectrics, further extending the scaling limit. Ma is now researching a new type of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), to save energy, increase memory and provide far faster methods of communication for personal and industry use in everything from cell phones to medical and defense technology.

Professor Ma believes many young people do not realize their potential for making a difference. His mother encouraged him to pursue engineering to make significant contributions to society. Beyond his work on gate dielectrics, some of his many contributions include: chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Yale, co-director of the Center for Microelectronic Materials and Structures at Yale, election to the National Academy of Engineering and the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and recipient of the 2006 Semiconductor Industry Association Award and the IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award. He advises youngsters to develop a strong foundation in math and science to have the needed tools. Tso Ping Ma would like to be remembered as an innovator who “believes in the use of technology to improve society, and an educator who brings up the next generation of innovators.”

When Gene Banucci was in seventh grade, he wrote an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up: a chemist and an investment banker — unusual interests for a thirteen-year old! But that’s just what he became: a chemist and CEO of his own company, ATMI, that employs over 750 people worldwide with a market capitalization exceeding one billion dollars. Despite these accomplishments, he wants to be known best for his contributions to the progress of mankind.

Dr. Banucci came from humble beginnings, growing up in Racine, Wisconsin. His father worked for the railroad, his mother in a retail shop. Dr. Banucci recalls that he was thirteen when Sputnik went into orbit. This event “catalyzed an interest in all things scientific;” later, in high school, his chemistry teacher made chemistry “a lot more fun.” An avid reader, Dr. Banucci was the first in his family to go to college. He earned a scholarship to Beloit College, where he majored in chemistry. He credits his professors with developing his speaking, writing and leadership skills — skills he believes are critical to being a good scientist. After completing his PhD in organic chemistry at Wayne State University, he was hired by General Electric Company where he developed his first patent at the age of 29.

“Creativity without the opportunity to create doesn’t do much,” he says, and he feels lucky to have both. He believes he inherited his creativity from his father, whose family was very creative. Dr. Banucci’s inventions are his creative and scientific response to needs that require attention. He explains that his company’s greatest invention and the one of which he is proudest, derived from meeting a fire chief.

The story begins in Silicon Valley, where microchips that power computers, cell phones, and Game Boys are manufactured. In emergencies, firefighters were reluctant to enter chip manufacturing plants because of toxic gases used in the manufacturing process. The fire chief asked if the storage and use of these gases could be made safer.

Dr. Banucci and his team learned of work being done on trapping these dangerous gases in absorbent materials containing millions of tiny holes. These new materials acted like sponges, except the gases completely adhered to the material and could not be released simply by opening a canister. Dr. Banucci and his team redesigned the material by changing the size of the holes, thus allowing workers to safely extract the gases. The end result, the SDS (Safe Delivery System), is now employed in every chip manufacturing plant in the world, making both the workplace and environment safer.

Dr. Banucci has this advice for young people, “Our world is changing at an increasingly faster and faster pace. Science and technology are driving those changes. If young people today do not understand the scientific reasons that explain the changes, they will have little chance to adapt. It’s not the strongest of the species that survive but the most adaptable.” Dr. Banucci has been a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering since 2007.

What do the James Bond movie Goldfinger, Tom Clancy’s novel, The Cardinal of the Kremlin and the United Technologies Research Center have in common? They are all loves of Tony DeMaria’s, because they encourage the exploration of science and laser technology. Dr. DeMaria came to America from Italy when he was five years old, grew up in a tough Waterbury neighborhood, and worked construction jobs to help his family and support his education. His father was a janitor with limited education and his mother was a garment worker with no education. He struggled to learn English, had a stutter, and didn’t fit in well until 8th grade. In spite of these challenges, he went on to become one of Connecticut’s greatest contributors to scientific advancement and technology. To what does he owe his success? To a fascination with science that as a youngster included geology and astronomy, and to his family physician, who in 1950 advised him to study electronics, “an exploding field” after World War II. This advice led Dr. DeMaria to his favorite hobby and lifelong career: laser research.

Dr. DeMaria graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering. He began his first job, working on radar applications for Anderson Laboratories. It wasn’t long before he realized that applied physics was his true passion; he began attending night classes at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Hartford, earning a Masters Degree in Science. A turning point in his life occurred in 1959, when he read Nobel laureate Charles Townes’s theoretical paper on lasers; this encouraged him to enroll in a PhD program in both electronics and physics at UConn. His 1965 thesis led to his greatest breakthrough — generating picosecond laser pulses, whose time durations lasted the time it takes light to travel the thickness of a sheet of paper. These ultra-fast laser pulses made it possible to probe atoms and molecules and measure their relaxation rates, a discovery that led to overnight fame and his election to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and as president of the Optical Society of America. He is a founding member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1994, Dr. DeMaria retired from United Technologies to start DeMaria ElectroOptics Systems, LLC (DEOS) with the purpose of transferring laser radar technology to commercial use. In 2001, DEOS was acquired by Coherent, Inc, becoming Coherent-DEOS, LLC located in Bloomfield, where he serves as chief scientist. He is very proud of his company, which has created over 200 new jobs in Connecticut and exports over 75% of its laser products worldwide. He continues to make valuable contributions to the scientific community as he sees his role “progressing from scientist to manager to entrepreneur.” Dr. DeMaria has been awarded 55 patents and continues to develop new ideas.

“Technology is what makes the world go around,” says Dr. DeMaria. “Countries with good technology are the global economic leaders.” He believes that unfortunately “many Americans are intimidated by science and technology, which are not only very important fields for keeping us competitive in a world market, but are also fields of great interest, reward and excitement.” Dr. DeMaria tells young people not to “believe that people in technology are the nerds portrayed on television and in movies. Scientists and engineers contribute greatly to the economic health and well-being of the world, while enjoying life and having fun too!”

Charlie Kaman was not easily discouraged. In the 1940s, when others thought helicopters were frivolous designs with little potential for the aerospace industry, Charlie was hard at work in his mother’s garage, developing an improved model with a 1933 Pontiac engine. The work he did that day and the years to follow changed his life and the lives of thousands who have been airlifted and rescued from the jungles of Vietnam and the waters off Iran in helicopters manufactured by the Kaman Aircraft Corporation — the company that Charlie Kaman started in 1945 by selling $1,000 in stock to each of two close friends. Kaman developed the first gas turbine-powered helicopter, now in the Smithsonian Museum collection.

Charles Kaman grew up in Washington, D.C. His father was a German immigrant who supervised construction on the Supreme Court. As a youngster, Charles set records for hand-launched model gliders, dreaming of becoming a professional pilot. When a tonsillectomy left him deaf in one ear, he had to change plans. In 1940 he earned a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Catholic University. He turned down a job with the Tommy Dorsey Band to take a position in the propeller performance unit at Hamilton Standard, a division of United Aircraft, where he met his mentor, Igor Sikorsky. In a speech to the Wings Club in 1996, he said “At that moment, something clicked. I knew Igor was onto something big. I revered Igor Sikorsky, and I always retained a tremendous amount of respect for what he accomplished.”

After becoming head of the aerodynamics department, he partnered with Sikorsky to design rotors for helicopters needed during WW II. This work required application of the Goldstein Vortex Theory to analyze performance of airplane propellers in hovering and vertical flight — a tedious, time-consuming endeavor that frustrated his efforts to efficiently complete the necessary calculations. Since PCs had not yet been invented, Mr. Kaman essentially invented his own: “At home on my own time, I began designing a special computer with the hope of reducing dramatically the time required for individual point calculations. I created a new calculating machine, which I called the Aerodynamic Calculator. The device, which used relays, switches, condensers and electronic tube circuits working on logarithmic scales, reduced the calculation time to five minutes.”

Charles Kaman’s interests extend beyond helicopters and aerodynamics. He is an avid music and animal lover, a guitarist who used his knowledge of helicopter design to build guitars with a natural sound from aerospace composites. The round-backed Ovation guitar laid the foundation for his music company. Today, Kaman Music is a global manufacturer and distributor of instruments for professional and amateur musicians. Mr. Kaman and his wife, Roberta, also founded the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation, dedicated to training guide dogs for work with the blind. This organization is unique because it not only breeds suitable dogs, but provides an “in-community”training program whereby instructors bring dogs into the home to train both pet and owner. The Kamans were named Melvin Jones Fellows by Lions Club International for their years of service to the blind.

Charles Kaman lived his personal credo – success hinges on one’s determination to work hard despite obstacles which ultimately serve to “sweeten the fruit of success.” His life’s work has yielded many honors, including the 1997 National Aeronautic Association’s Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy, the 1996 National Medal of Technology, the 1996 Connecticut Medal of Technology, and the US Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

The boy was only fifteen when he was arrested and sent to Mauer bei Wien, a Nazi labor camp. A few weeks later he was released, only to be rearrested and with his father, packed on a train headed toward Dachau, one of Hitler’s infamous concentration camps. The boy convinced his father to jump with him from the train. Hiking through the dangerous countryside, they managed to find their way back to Vienna. Sadly, the Nazis found his father and sent him to an internment camp in Poland and that was the last time the boy saw his father. Through a tireless effort, his mother secured them passage on a ship bound for America and a new life. The year was 1940 and the boy was Heinz Joseph Gerber, who grew up to become one of the most eminent inventors of the 20th century and the recipient of numerous awards including the 1994 National Medal of Technology Award and the 1995 Connecticut Medal of Technology. He was granted several honorary doctorates and more than 670 US and foreign patents. Joseph Gerber was a man who will be remembered for his brilliance, creativity, energy and generous spirit.

Joe Gerber arrived in Hartford and in two years, completed Weaver High School while working jobs in hotels, tobacco fields, and a bakery, all the while learning English. He earned a scholarship to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, graduating with a B.S. in aeronautical engineering. One night, during his junior year at Rensselaer, he fell behind in his engineering homework. An ingenious young man with a knack for spontaneously inventing ways to solve problems, he used the waistband from his pajamas to fashion a calibrated computing device that helped him solve his math problems and would later launch his career. This device is now known as The Gerber Variable Scale, hailed as the most revolutionary tool since the slide rule, and the company he started in 1945 became Gerber Scientific, Inc. Today, Gerber Scientific is a company worth half a billion dollars and employing two thousand people, with worldwide sales.

Joe was always looking for problems to solve. Before the advent of computers in the 1950s, he designed data reduction equipment, including the Derivimeter and the Equameter which give the derivative and the equation of a curve respectively, and the GraphAnalogue, an improved version of the Variable Scale. These instruments are now part of a permanent collection at the Smithsonian Museum.

Later in his career he designed a tool that transformed the US apparel industry struggling to compete with overseas markets. His innovation is the GERBERcutter®, which cuts large quantities of material with a computer-controlled knife. It provided jobs to thousands of Americans. Joseph Gerber, together with the people he mentored, changed the way manufacturing is done in this country. Gerber Scientific is responsible for the development of cost-cutting and time-saving design and manufacturing methods that transformed drafting, cartography, circuit boards, automotive, aerospace, apparel and other flexible materials, signs, billboards, printing prepress and lenses for eyeglasses.

Joseph Gerber believed that young people should find their passion and work to cultivate their interests. He was a natural teacher who valued learning for learning’s sake. His children remember him saying, “Education is the wings on creativity”. He loved science, as he believed it to be an essential part of life, something which provides both truth and beauty, enables human creativity, and improves our standard of living. Although he was a disciplined man who vastly contributed to the world of engineering and business, “he never lost his childhood curiosity” or his “love for America.”