David Auston

Provost and Herman Brown Professor of Engineering
Rice University

Professor Auston joined the technical staff of AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, in 1969, where he began research on high-speed optics and electronics. In 1982 he became a department head in the Physics Research Division, with responsibility for supervising basic research in lasers, microelectronics, X-rays, and low-temperature physics. He left Bell Laboratories in 1987 to become Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at Columbia University, where he became Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering in 1990 and Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1991. As dean, he held the Morris and Alma A. Schapiro Distinguished Professorship of Engineering. In 1994 he moved to Rice University, where he became Provost and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Professor Auston has contributed to research in the fields of lasers, nonlinear optics, and solid-state materials. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Optical Society of America, and the American Physical Society. He is the recipient of the R. W. Wood prize of the Optical Society of America and the Quantum Electronics and the Morris E. Leeds Awards of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.