Eric A. Swanson

Eric Swanson is an active participant in a variety of entrepreneurial, industrial, academic, and volunteer activities. He chairs the board of directors for Acacia Communications and is a member of the boards of directors for NinePoint Medical and Curata. He serves on the governing board of the Danish National Quantum Innovation Center is an affiliate of the MIT Deshpande Center for Entrepreneurship and MIT Translational Fellows Program.

He is a cofounder or founding board member of five startup companies: Advanced Ophthalmic Devices (an ophthalmic OCT company acquired by Zeiss Meditec in 1994), Lightlab Imaging (a cardiovascular OCT company), Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq IPO 1999), Acacia Communications (Nasdaq IPO 2016), and Curata (private). These companies have evolved over time and shipped well over $1B in products around the world.  During 16 years at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, he participated in the discovery and advancement of OCT and worked on optical networks (including one of the first wavelength division multiplexed all-optical networks) and space communication (including one of the first intersatellite laser communication systems).

He has co-authored 81 journal articles, 142 conference presentations, 40 US patents, and 7 book chapters. In 2017 he was elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for contributions to OCT and leadership in optical networking. In 2002 he was elected a fellow of the Optical Society (OSA) for pioneering contributions to the fields of intersatellite laser communication systems, fiber optic communication networks, and biomedical optical imaging. He is a co-recipient of the 2012 António Champalimaud Vision Award and the 2002 Rank Prize in Optoelectronics.

Mr. Swanson holds a BS summa cum laude in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MS in electrical engineering from MIT.