Eric Johnson

Biography

Dr. Eric G. Johnson was the Palmetto-Net Endowed Chair in Optoelectronics and Professor of ECE at Clemson. He also served as the head of the South Carolina Smart-State Center of Economic Excellence in Optoelectronics at Clemson University. 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. Prior to 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 has also served two rotations (2008-2010,2018-2019) as a Program Director in photonics within the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) Division of the National Science Foundation. 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 is a Fellow of Optica/OSA, SPIE, and a senior member of IEEE. Dr. Johnson has served as a commission member for the ABET Engineering Accreditation Committee (EAC) and has served on the Board of Directors for SPIE. Dr. Johnson was also an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices in optoelectronics, and Optica/OSA’s Applied Optics, and numerous other editorial and committee chair positions for IEEE, Optica/OSA, and SPIE. Dr. Johnson’s research spans the area of optics and photonics, with applications ranging from free space optical communications, optical imaging and sensing, and beam control applications in Directed Energy. Dr. Johnson’s recent work on structured light for imaging and sensing is an integral part of the MURI program he leads with other major research partners. Dr. Johnson’s research efforts have received over $20,000,000 in his career, with grants from ONR, AFOSR, DARPA, NSF, and other Federal Agencies. His research has also led to approximately 300 publications and 23 patents.