Eric Fossum
Eric R. Fossum is an Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California.
Early years and education
Fossum was born and raised in Connecticut. He received his B.S. in physics and engineering from Trinity College in 1979 and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Yale University in 1984.
Academic career
Eric R. Fossum became a member of Electrical Engineering faculty at Columbia University from 1984 to 1990. At Columbia University, he and his students performed research on CCD focal-plane image processing and high speed III-V CCDs. In 1990, Dr. Fossum joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and managed JPL’s image sensor and focal-plane technology research and advanced development.
Invention
While at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Fossum invented the CMOS active pixel sensor (APS) camera-on-a-chip technology and led its development and subsequent transfer of the technology to US industry. The CMOS image sensor technology is now used in most cell-phone cameras, PC cameras, digital SLR cameras, smart cars, swallowable "pill cameras", and in high-resolution, high-speed cameras for special-effects and motion analysis and represents a billion-dollar-plus per year IC business.
In 1995, he co-founded Photobit Corporation to commercialize the technology and joined as Chief Scientist in 1996. He became CEO of Photobit Technology Corporation in 2000. In late 2001, Micron Technology Inc. acquired Photobit and Dr. Fossum was named a Senior Micron Fellow. He left Micron in 2003. In 2005, he joined SiWave Inc., a developer of MEMS technology for mobile phone handsets, as CEO.
In 2007 he sponsored, in part, the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Robot Contest,[1] aimed at increasing innovation and invention in the world of robotics.
Achievements and awards
Eric R. Fossum has published over 200 technical papers, and holds more than 90 U.S. patents. He is a Fellow member of the IEEE. He has been primary thesis adviser to several graduated Ph.D.s. He has received several prizes and honors. Some of those awards and honors are:
- He received Yale’s Becton Prize in 1984.
- He received the IBM Faculty Development Award in 1984.
- He reveived the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986, the JPL Lew Allen Award for Excellence in 1992.
- He received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 1996.
- He was inducted into the US Space Foundation Technology Hall of Fame in 1999.
- He received he received the Photographic Society of America's Progress Medal in 2003 and the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal in 2004, both for the invention of the CMOS active pixel image sensor technology.