Kerry Vahala

Kerry J. Vahala is an American professor of Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Vahala is known for his studies of devices called optical microcavities[1] and their application to a wide range of subjects including miniature frequency and time systems, microwave sources, parametric oscillators, astrocombs and gyroscopes.

[6] He also contributed to the understanding of quantum well lasers for optical communications, and shared with Y. Arakawa and K. Lau the 2009 IEEE David Sarnoff Award for research on quantum-well laser dynamics.

Vahala has also received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award, and was the first recipient of Caltech's Feynman Hughes Fellowship.

[8] Vahala has served as associate editor to both Photonics Technology Letters and the Journal of the Optical Society of America, is on the advisory board of APL Photonics, and was Program Chair and General Chair for the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) in 2000 and 2001.