Prof. Alan Willner is currently the Steven and Kathryn Sample Chaired Professor in Engineering at the University of Southern California. Willner has served on many scientific advisory boards, is a member of the Army Science Board and was a Member of the Defense Sciences Research Council. His research is in optical technologies including communications, signal processing, networks, and subsystems. He has ~35 patents and >1400 publications.
Willner has received several honors, including: honors including: Member of the US National Academy of Engineering; International Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering; IEEE Eric Sumner Technical Field Award; Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House; Globecom and Eddy Best Paper Awards; Fellow of National Academy of Inventors; and Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Packard Fellowships. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, IEEE, IET, OSA, and SPIE.
Willner has served as: Co-Chair of the US National Academies’ Study on Optics and Photonics; President of the Optical Society; President of the IEEE Photonics Society; and Editor-in-Chief of OSA Optics Letters, IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology, and IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.