| Tingye Li | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1931 Nanjing, China |
| Residence | Boulder, Colorado, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Engineer |
| Institutions | AT&T |
| Alma mater | University of Witwatersrand Northwestern University |
| Notable awards | IEEE W.R.G. Baker Prize (1975) OSA Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus Quinn Endowment (1997) IEEE Edison Medal (2009) |
Dr. Tingye Li (simplified Chinese: 厉鼎毅; traditional Chinese: 厲鼎毅; pinyin: Lì Dǐngyì) 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 for over four decades.[1]
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Tingye Li was born in 1931 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, the eldest son of a diplomat. His father was a senior officer of the Chinese Foreign Ministry (Before 1949, the Republic of China) and had served as an ambassador to several countries. At the age of 12, Li left China to join his father in Canada, where he lived for several years before moving to the United States of America.
He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Witwatersrand, and his Ph. D. from Northwestern University. After graduation, he began working at Bell Telephone Laboratories (later AT&T Bell Laboratories) in 1957, and worked there for 41 years until his retirement from AT&T Labs in 1998. During that time, he wrote and contributed to many journal papers, patents, and books in the areas of antennas, microwave propagation, lasers and optical communications.
In 1961, Li and his colleague A. Gardner Fox published a paper titled Resonant modes in a maser interferometer, which showed that "a laser beam bouncing back and forth between a pair of mirrors can resonate for a number of modes of energy distribution and for each of these traverse modes there is a different characteristic phase velocity and attenuation per transit." They used computer simulation techniques to obtain their data. This work was the first to point out that an open-sided resonator containing a laser medium should have unique modes of propagation, which is fundamental to the theory and practice of lasers. This work is now considered a classic and has been cited over 595 times (SCI) since its publication in 1961 until 1979 when Mr. Fox recalled and gave some remarks on their work.
From the late 1960s, Li engaged in pioneering research on lightwave technologies and systems, which are now ubiquitously deployed in the telecommunications industry. In the late 1980s, when the whole world’s attention on optical communication was still focused on a single-channel high speed solution, he and his team developed the world’s first (sparse channel) WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system at AT&T Bell Labs. With the understanding that a technique that can only be put into real use if it remains backwards-compatible with existing technology, he (and his team) proposed and studied the use of optical amplifiers in WDM systems, which utilized the existing embedded base to create virtual fibers by putting more channels onto a single fibre. Their experiment in 1992 at Roaring Creek turned out to be a "roaring success" as Li claimed in an interview, allowing 2.5 Gbit/s transmission per channel, the highest rate available at the time. The use of optical amplifiers changed the paradigm of network economics and is considered to be of revolutionary significance (though evolutionary in design) in the history of lightwave communications.
Li is active in a number of academic societies. He is the initiator of many conferences in optical communication and has often been invited to give plenary speeches. 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.
| Division | Position | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Radio Research Department | Researcher | 1957–1967 |
| Repeater Techniques Research Department | Director | 1967–1976 |
| Lightwave Media Research Department | Director | 1976–1984 |
| Lightwave Systems Research Department | Director | 1984–1996 |
| AT&T Labs-Research, Communications Infrastructure Research Laboratory |
Division Manager | 1996–1998 |
| AT&T | Consultant | 1999–2002 |
Dr. Tingye Li’s father (simplified Chinese: 厉斯昭; traditional Chinese: 厲斯昭; pinyin: Lì Sīzhāo) had served in the Chinese government for many years. His mother (simplified Chinese: 谢纬鹏; traditional Chinese: 謝緯鵬; pinyin: Xìe Wěipéng) was one of the first generation of Chinese women who received a modern higher education, and was an activist in the Chinese women’s liberation movement. His father-in-law K. C. Wu (traditional Chinese: 吳國楨; simplified Chinese: 吴国桢; pinyin: Wú Gúozhēn; Wade–Giles: Wu Kuo-Chen) is an important figure in China's modern history and was a governor of Taiwan province. He himself who? has also made a great contribution to the development of China’s optical communication industry. He who? became one of the first batch of specially hired experts of the Chinese State Council, participating in major state science and technology decision-making. He who? has also introduced lots of world-class experts to lecture in China, bringing to the country the state-of-art technology in optical communication. Thanks to his effort, the research and application of optical communication in China has made a great progress in the recent 20 years. He who? was named an honorary professor at many universities in China (including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Northern Jiaotong University, Fudan University, Nankai University, Tianjin University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, and Qufu Normal University), and was granted an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree by National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.
Li has said that developing components and devices must involve good understanding of systems applications and systems economics. This methodology was reflected in his introduction of optical amplifiers in WDM which offered network providers a graceful upgrade. Li has also mentored many younger colleagues, and is known to many as "Uncle Tingye."
Li's speeches, even on some dull technical topics, are known to be quite entertaining. One example was at the ITCom 2001 conference, where he gave a talk titled "Crouching Technologies and Hidden Profits", a play on the Chinese film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Dr. Tingye Li lives with his wife Edith Wu (simplified Chinese: 吴修惠; traditional Chinese: 吳修惠; pinyin: Wú Xīuhuì) in Boulder, Colorado. He is an independent consultant in the field of lightwave communications. His brother Ting-Kai Li (simplified Chinese: 厉鼎凯; traditional Chinese: 厲鼎凱; pinyin: Lì Dǐngkaǐ) is a prominent medical scientist and is the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). His brother-in-law is Sherman Wu, well-known for his struggles against racism at Northwestern University.
- Tingye Li at OFC '02, adapted from "Ode to the West Wind", by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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