Background
Auston, David Henry was born on November 14, 1940 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Arrived in the United States, 1963.
academic administrator educator electrical engineer
Auston, David Henry was born on November 14, 1940 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Arrived in the United States, 1963.
He then moved to California to work at the General Motors Defense Laboratory, and completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, working in the then-new area of laser physics.
And Master of Arts degrees in Engineering Physics and Electrical Engineering respectively, from the University of Toronto. He was then offered a job at the American Telephone & Telegraph Company Bell Labs with an open research mandate. Once there, he collaborated with materials scientist Alastair M. Glass to study properties of electro-optic crystals.
Shortly after, he came up with the idea of using photoconducting antennae as both a source and detector of radiation, developing what came to be known as "Auston switches".
After the downsizing of Bell Labs in 1987, Auston moved to Columbia University as Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, then moving to Rice University as Provost in 1994, until being appointed President at Case Western Reserve University in 1999. In 2003, he moved back to Santa Barbara, California to serve as the President of the Kavli Foundation.
Fellow: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Quantum Elecs. award 1990, Morris E. Leeds award 1991), American Physical Society, American Academy Arts and Sciences, Optical Society of America (R.W. Wood prize 1985). Member: National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Sciences.