Immigrant of the Day: Tingye Li (China)

Dr. Tingye Li (1931-) is a world-renowned scientist in the fields of microwaves, lasers and optical communications. His innovational work at AT&T, which pioneered the research and application of lightwave communication, has had a far-reaching impact on information technology.

Tingye Li was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. His father had been a senior officer of the Chinese Foreign Ministry (Before 1949, the Republic of China) and the ambassador to many countries. At the age of 12, Tingye Li left China and settled down in the Uniteds States. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Witwatersrand, and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. After graduation, he joined AT&T Labs in 1957 and worked there for 41 years until his retirement in 1998.

Tingye Li contributed more than 100 journal papers, patents, books and book chapters in the areas of antennas, microwave propagation, lasers and optical communications.  Since the late 1960s, he has been engaged in pioneering research on lightwave technologies and systems, which are now ubiquitously deployed in all arenas of telecommunications. In the late 1980s, he and his team developed the world’s first (sparse channel) WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system at AT&T Labs.

Li is active in a number of academic societies. Because of his outstanding contribution and spirit of service, he was elected the President of the Optical Society of America (OSA) in 1995. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Academia Sinica (Taiwan) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Tingye Li now lives with his wife Edith Wu in Boulder, Colorado. He is now an independent consultant in the field of lightwave communications.

KJ