Kenneth Pedrotti received his BS in Engineering Physics from University of California, Berkeley in 1978. He received his MS in electrical engineering specializing in quantum electronics, in 1979 and Ph.D. in electrical engineering, from Stanford University working at the Ginzton Laboratory on problems in non-linear optics and atomic physics.
Dr. Pedrotti joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz in Sept. 2000. His current projects include, sensor interfaces for data array sensing and processing, low power VLSI clock distribution, low phase noise oscillators and next generation optical data storage systems He teaches courses in advanced analog integrated circuits, analog electronics, introduction to electronics, modern electronic technology and “how it works”, semiconductor devices and optical fiber communications.
Prior to joining the faculty he was with the Rockwell Science Center in Thousand Oaks, CA and with what is now Mindspeed Technologies Inc. in Newbury Park, CA serving in a variety of positions in both research and management. There he worked on the development of infrared imaging array detector and readout chips, CMOS visible imagers, high-bandwidth WDM components and switching systems, performed early investigations into all-optical networks and developed monolithic optoelectronic integrated receivers with world record performance. Additionally he has worked on AlGaAs/GaAs Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) circuits for optical transmitters, receivers, switches, clock recovery and data regeneration, as well as MOCVD crystal growth of quantum structures in III-V compound semiconductors for optoelectronic devices, including lasers, detectors and modulators.
Additionally Dr. Pedrotti has worked as a technical consultant for a number of electronics and optoelectronics companies as well as serves as a legal consultant in the capacity of both consulting and expert witness. He currently serves on the scientific advisory board of Opticomp Corp.
Dr. Pedrotti is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and has served on the board of Governors of the IEEE Solid State Circuit Society from 1995-1999. He was a recipient of an R&D 100 Award for the NAM, a multiwavelength optical network access module judged the top telecommunication product and one of the top 100 R&D Products of 1996 He is a member of IEEE Solid State Circuits Society, IEEE Lasers and Electrooptics Society (LEOS), IEEE Electron Devices Society, Optical Society of America (OSA) and the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE).