Robert A. Norwood is a Professor in the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, where he performs research on photonic materials and devices, specifically high speed electro-optic modulators and switches, RF photonics, silicon photonics, plasmonics, infrared optical polymer materials and devices, magneto-optic materials and devices, polymer-based integrated optics, 3-D display technology, solar energy, nonlinear optical fibers, biologically inspired optical microresonators and ultrafast optical switching among other areas. Prior to his current position, Dr. Norwood spent 15 years in R&D leadershipositions in industry at both Fortune 100 corporations AlliedSignal now Honeywell) and venture-capital backed startups VP and CTO of Photon-X) He is a world expert in polymer integrated optics and optical materials, with more than 165 refereed publications, 7 book chapters, 35 issued US patents, and 70 invited talks. Dr. Norwood has served as a conference chair or co-chair for Organic Thin Films for Photonic Applications OSA/ACS) and Linear and Nonlinear Optics in Organic Materials SPIE) and has served on the program committee for OFC sub-committee chair) he has just started his second three year tenure on the CLEO OSA) program committee. He is an associate editor of Optica and has previously served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Photonics Technology Letters and Optical Materials Express. He is both an OSA Fellow and an SPIE Fellow, as well as a member of APS and IEEE. He holds the Ph. D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and the B.S. in physics and mathematics from MIT.