Robert Brown, Chief Executive Officer, American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Tuesday, March 29th, 2016
3:30 pm reception
4:00 pm talk
Lobby of the Physical Sciences Complex
This seminar series is open to all faculty, staff, students, research, and community members.
Dr.
Robert G. W. Brown is chief executive officer of the American Institute
of Physics, a federation of 10 Member Societies in the physical
sciences, which in total serve 120,000 members in the United States and
around the world. As a trained physicist and engineer, Brown has made
substantial contributions in research, product and business development,
teaching, publishing, editorial direction, and administration. He has
held various leadership positons in the corporate, non-profit, academic,
and government sectors, principally in the United Kingdom, the United
States, and Northern Ireland, with additional ventures throughout Europe
and Asia. His research interests extend from nanotechnology to
photonics, optics, medical physics, fluid dynamics, and beyond. Brown
has authored more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals and holds
34 patents, several of which have been successfully commercialized. As
CEO, he serves as an ex-officio member on the boards of AIP and AIP
Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of the institute.
Brown
is an elected member of the European Academy of the Sciences and Arts
(Academia Europaea) and a special professor at the University of
Nottingham in the UK. He also retains an adjunct full professorship at
the University of California, Irvine in the Beckman Laser Institute and
Medical Clinic and is a visiting professor in the Department of Computer
Science, also at UC Irvine.
Before
coming to AIP, Brown most recently led the nano-plasmonic research
activities at Rockwell Collins’ Advanced Technology Center, and was
chief technology officer to Ostendo Technologies, a specialist display
company, in Carlsbad, California. He served for various years as
professor and director of nanotechnology for Northern Ireland; executive
director of the UK Institute of Physics; and head of optoelectronics
research and development for Sharp Laboratories of Europe, the world’s
third largest optoelectronics corporation. As a principal scientist in
the UK Ministry of Defence’s Royal Radar Establishment, Brown was
responsible for inventing new detector, electronic correlator, APD
photo-detector, laser-diode, liquid-crystal display and optical-fiber
technologies that have since been developed into successful products for
experiments related to jet engines, macro-molecules, US submarines, and
space shuttle instrumentation.
Brown
has been recognized for his entrepreneurship with the United Kingdom’s
Ministry of Defence Prize for ‘Outstanding Technology Transfer,’ Sharp
Corporation’s (Japan) prize for his novel laser-diode invention, and,
together with his team at the UK Institute of Physics, a Queen’s Award
for Enterprise, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a UK
company.
Brown is editor-in-chief of the Handbook of Optoelectronics published
by CRC Press and is co-editor-in-chief of the CRC Press book series in
‘Optics and Optoelectronics’. He has been co-chairman for four of OSA’s
International Photon Correlation Conferences, and editor of subsequent
related special issues of Applied Optics.
He has served as a consultant to many companies and government research
centers in the USA and UK, most notably on NASA’s Microgravity
Experimental Advisory Board and on the UK Home Office (Homeland Security
Department equivalent) Science and Technology Reference Committee.
Brown is a citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom.
For more information on the Physics Colloquia series please visit: https://umdphysics.umd.edu/events/physicscolloquia.html
