Duncan MacFarlane, Ph.D. joins the Hunt Institute as a Senior Fellow bringing his expertise in entrepreneurship and engineering. Dr. MacFarlane holds the Bobby B. Lyle Centennial Chair in Engineering Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Southern Methodist University. Duncan has written more than 100 technical papers or patents in the general area of photonic systems and components. Specific research projects have included micro-optics, ultrafast lasers, photonic integrated filters, nonlinear optics, semiconductor lasers, RF and optical communications, and advanced displays. His work in photonic filters is used widely by practicing optical component and system engineers in industry. He pioneered the manufacture of micro-optics using inkjet techniques and invented a novel 3-dimensional volumetric display that has found application in aerospace.
When asked what motivates him to do impact work, Duncan replied, “I consider myself fortunate to be in a role where I can help everyone around become better and better off.”
Prior to joining SMU, Duncan spent 26 years at The University of Texas at Dallas. An early hire in the then nascent Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science he contributed to the definition and growth of a top engineering school. Duncan served as Program Head of Telecommunications Engineering, and as Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Programs, he started three new departments (Materials Science and Engineering, Bioengineering, Systems Engineering and Management) and six new degree programs. He has worked at Schafer Associates, Texas Instruments and at JDS Uniphase, and helped start Celion Networks, a telecommunications system start-up backed by Sequoia. He is a Co-Founder of MRRA, a company dedicated to improving medical imaging through supporting instrumentation. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Electromagnetics, Microwave Engineering, Optics, Probability and Statistics, Signals and Systems, Communication Systems and Electronics. Duncan received his BSEE and MSEE from Brown University, his Ph.D. from Portland State University and his MBA from SMU. Duncan is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.
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