Comporium and PalmettoNet Endowed Chair in Optoelectronics; Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D. - 1996, University of Alabama at Huntsville Electrical Engineering
M.S. - 1989, University of Central Florida Electrical Sciences
B.S. - 1985, Purdue University Physics
Contact Information:
Office: 215 Riggs Hall
Office Phone: 864.656.5763
Email: ejohns8@clemson.edu
Professional
As the PalmettoNet Endowed Chair in Optoelectronics, Eric Johnson serves as the head of the South Carolina SmartState Center of Economic Excellence in Optoelectronics. Before joining Clemson, Dr. Johnson held a joint appointment as a Professor of Physics and Optical Science as well as Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2006-2011), where he also served as the Director of the Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications. Dr. Johnson served a two year appointment (2008-2010) as a Program Director in the Electronics, Photonics and Device Technologies program in the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) Division of the National Science Foundation. His responsibilities included the management and oversight of the photonics program area. Dr. Johnson was an Associate Professor at the College of Optics and Photonics/CREOL at the University of Central Florida (2000-2007). Prior to that, Dr. Johnson was the Vice President of Research and Development at Digital Optics Corporation. Dr. Johnson has also held various other positions in industry for research, engineering, and management.
Dr. Johnson has served on the Board of Directors for SPIE and has served on various committees for scholarship, conferences, and technical programs within SPIE. He has served as an Ex-Officio member on IEEE’s EDS Optoelectronic Devices Committee. Dr. Johnson was also the previous Chair for the Optics in Information Science Division of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the former OSA Technical Group Chair for Holography and Diffractive Optics. He has served as Topical Editor for OSA’s journal of Applied Optics and an Associate Editor for SPIE's Journal of MEMS. He is a Fellow of OSA, SPIE, and a Senior Member of IEEE. Dr. Johnson has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama at Huntsville, MS in Electrical Sciences from the University of Central Florida, and BS Physics from Purdue University.
Research
Dr. Johnson's research spans the area of micro-optics and nano-photonics, with particular emphasis on active and passive photonic devices. Some of his major innovations include the development of methods for fabricating 3-Dimensional micro- and nano-optics (Meta-Optics), high power lasers, novel integrated fiber beam shaping devices utilizing multimode interference, sensors, fiber lasers, data communications, and passive optics for spectral and polarization filtering. He has over 150 publications in the field with 13 issued patents. He has supervised numerous PhD students through their PhD completion in Optics and Electrical Engineering. He has received over $15,000,000 in externally funded university and small business research. He was a recipient of NSF's CAREER Award and has been funded by DARPA, AFOSR, ONR, and numerous industrial organizations.