John Bowers received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University and worked for AT&T Bell Laboratories and Honeywell before joining UC Santa Barbara in 1987. Bowers was a Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Materials, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Technology Management and held the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology. He is the founding Director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and a founding member of the University’s Technology Management Department. He is a cofounder of Nexus Photonics, Quintessent, Aurrion, Aerius Photonics, Terabit Technology and Calient Networks.
Bowers is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Inventors, and a fellow of the IEEE, Optica, AAAS, and the American Physical Society. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the IEEE Nishizawa Medal, the IEEE Photonics Field Award, IEEE/OSA Tyndall Award, OSA Holonyak Prize, the IEEE LEOS William Streifer Award and the South Coast Business and Technology Pioneer and Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. He has published twenty book chapters, 950 journal papers, 1400 conference papers and received 75 patents.
Bowers founded the Santa Barbara nonprofit Unite to Light in 2008. The nonprofit has distributed 280,000 solar powered reading lights in 80 countries and saved 80 Mtons of CO2 emissions. Based on a study of 25,000 students, the average high school graduation rate goes up by 28% when a student without access to electricity receives a light.
