Director

Qualifications
B. Sc. (Hons 1), physics, University of Sydney, 1992
PhD, Physics, University of Sydney, 1996

Current appointment
Professor of Physics, Federation Fellow and Director of CUDOS-- ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems.

Employment history
Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies (1996-1998);
Member of Technical Staff, (1998-2000);
Technical Manager - Fiber gratings and photonic devices group, (2000-2001);
Research Director, Specialty Fiber Devices business with Lucent Technologies (January 2001-November 2001);
Director of Photonic Devices Research, OFS Laboratories & OFS-Specialty Photonics Division (November 2001-December 2002).

Major awards
• Pawsey Medal from the Australian Academy of Science (2007). Awarded for outstanding research in physics by scientists under 40 years.
• Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Australian Physical Scientist of the Year (2004). Awarded for an outstanding achievement in science that advances or has the potential to advance human welfare, or that benefits society.
• ICO Prize: International Commission for Optics (2003). Awarded to an individual who has made a noteworthy contribution to optics through publications before reaching the age of 40.
• R&D100 Award for inventing and developing dynamic dispersion compensator (2002), for one of the 100 most technologically significant products of the year.
• IEEE/LEOS Distinguished Lecturer Award (2002–03). Awarded to honour excellent speakers who have made technical, industrial or entrepreneurial contributions of high quality to the field of lasers and electro-optics.
• Fellow of the Optical Society of America (2002), limited to 10% of members, by nomination and elected by the Committee, in recognition of my contributions to research into optical fibre gratings and photonic devices.
• Circle of Excellence Award, Photonics Spectra Magazine, for my tuneable dispersion compensator (2002); Excellence in Technical Innovation Award, Laser Focus World, for my microfluidic fibre (2002).
• ARC Federation Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (2001). Only 25 awarded each year across all academic disciplines.
• Adolph Lomb Medal, Optical Society of America (1998), presented to a person who has made a noteworthy contribution to optics before the age of 35.

Expertise
Benjamin Eggleton is currently an ARC Federation Fellow and Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney. He is Research Director of the Centre for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), an ARC Centre of Excellence. He studied at the University of Sydney, obtaining his BSc (Hons 1) in 1992 and his PhD in Physics in 1996. After graduation, he went to the United States to join the world’s leading research institute in his field, Bell Laboratories, as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Optical Physics Department. He then transferred to the Optical Fiber Research Department as a Member of Technical Staff and was subsequently promoted to Technical Manager of the Optical Fibre Grating group. Soon after this, he became the research Director of the Specialty Fiber Business Division of Bell Lab's parent company, Lucent Technologies where he drove Lucent’s research program in optical fibre devices. He has co-authored more than 180 journal papers, presented more than 40 invited and plenary presentations at international conferences, and has filed 35 patents. He has received several significant awards. Most notably, in 2004 he received the Prime Minister¹s Malcolm McIntosh Science Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year, in 2003 the ICO Prize (International Commission for Optics), and in 1998 was awarded the Adolph Lomb Medal from the Optical Society of America. Other achievements include the award of the distinguished lecturer award from the IEEE/LEOS, a R&D100 award, and being made an OSA Fellow in 2003. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, a member of the editorial advisory board for Optics Communications and serves as Vice-President of the Australian Optical Society. In 2007 Professor Eggleton will be presented with the Pawsey Medal from the Australian Academy of Sciences.