Bio


Vincent W. S. Chan, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Chair Professor of EECS, and the Artificial Intelligence & Decision Making Sector of the Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, MIT, received his BS(71)/MS(71)/EE(72)/Ph.D.(74) degrees from EECS MIT. From 1974 to 1977, he was an assistant professor, EE, at Cornell University. He joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1977 and had been Head of the Communications and Information Technology Division (the joint Communication Division and the Computer Science now called Cyber Division) until becoming the Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (1999–2007) at MIT. He founded and is currently a member of the Claude E. Shannon Communication and Network Group at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics.

In July 1983, he initiated the US Government’s Laser Inter-satellite Transmission Experiment Program and the follow-on GeoLITE Program. In 1989, he used the first “Dual-Use Technology Investment” by the Clinton Administration to form (and served as Chair), under the “Other Transaction Authority,” the All-Optical-Network Consortium among MIT, AT&T and DEC, the Next Generation Internet Consortium, ONRAMP among AT&T, Cabletron, MIT, Nortel and JDS (now United Technologies), and a Satellite Networking Research Consortium formed between MIT, Motorola, Teledesic and Globalstar (a precursor to some of the current low earth orbit commercial satellite ventures).

He has served in many US/non-US government advisory boards/committees, including chairing the Defense Science Board Task Force on Defense Communications, Networks and Satellite Communications and the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Advisory Committee. He has been active with start-ups and was a former Board Member and  Chair of the Technical Advisory Board of a Fortune-500 network company and an Emeritus Member of the Draper Corporation. After chairing the Strategic Planning Committee of the IEEE Communication Society from 2018-2019, he served as the President of the IEEE Communication Society for 2020 and 2021 and is the President Emeritus since 2022.He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and the Optical Society of America (OPTICA), and is a member of Eta-Kappa-Nu, Tau-Beta-Pi and Sigma-Xi.

His current research focus is on the architecture aspect of optical networks, cognitive heterogeneous network management and control, resiliency and security. He is the 2024 recipient of the IEEE Thomas Edison Medal for “pioneering technical contributions and leadership in the fields of space and terrestrial optical communications and networks.”

Workshop on Free Space Optical Networks

Publications

Courses

  • 6.267 – Heterogeneous Networks: Architecture, Transport, Protocols & Management
  • 6.442– Optical Communications and Networks
  • 6.262- Discrete Stochastic Process
  • 6.450- Digital Communications