Andrew M Weiner

Andrew M. Weiner earned his ScD degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. He was the Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, USA.  He previous joined Bellcore, USA, first as a member of Technical Staff and later as Manager of Ultrafast Optics and Optical Signal Processing Research. He has also spent sabbaticals at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Ultrashort Pulse Spectroscopy, Germany; JILA, University of Colorado, USA; and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.

Weiner’s had a long term in interest in ultrafast optics, with an emphasis on processing of extremely high speed lightwave signals and ultrabroadband radio-frequency signals. He was best known for his seminal work on programmable pulse shaping; his recent research focuses on integrated nonlinear photonics and quantum optics. 

He has graduated 48 PhD students, was the author of the textbook Ultrafast Optics, and published eleven book chapters, over 1,000 journal and conference papers, and is the inventor of 18 US patents. An engaged volunteer, he served as Editor-in-chief of Optics Express, and chaired multiple conferences including the National Academy’s U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Meeting and the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO).  

He was a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventers and was selected as a Department of Defense National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow. He was a Fellow of Optica and IEEE. His numerous awards include the Adolph Lomb Medal, the R.W. Wood Prize, the Charles Hard Townes Medal, Hertz Foundation Doctoral Thesis Prize, the International Commission on Optics Prize, and William Streifer Scientific Achievement Award and Quantum Electronics Prize. At Purdue he was recognized with the inaugural Research Excellence Award from the Schools of Engineering, the Provost's Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor Award, the Herbert Newby McCoy Award for outstanding contributions to the natural sciences, and the College of Engineering Mentoring Award.

He passed away on 13 February 2024.