Born in Surat, Gujarat, Dr Jagdeep Shah completed his graduate studies from the University of Mumbai in 1962 and later went on to receive a PhD from MIT in 1967. Dr Shah was a distinguished member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies (1996–2001), and at Bell Laboratories, AT&T (1985–1996). He made a number of seminal contributions to optical and electrical properties of semiconductors, ultrafast coherent and incoherent dynamics in semiconductors and their nanostructures, and to the understanding of ultrafast dynamics of electronic, optoelectronics and photonic devices. He has more than 300 technical publications, including one book and one edited book.

He is also the recipient of the Max Born Award from the Optical Society of America (2000), Distinguished Traveling Lecturer Award from the American Physical Society (1996-1998), Humboldt US Senior Scientist Award (1990), and the Bell Labs Distinguished Member of Technical Staff Award (1985). He is a member of the Solid State Sciences Committee of the US National Academy of Sciences, and has served on a number of government and professional panels. Dr Shah is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.

Dr Shah is now a program manager with the microsystems technology office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of American department of defence. He is engaged in basic and applied research on chip-scale wavelength division multiplexing and optical code division multiple access. Dr Shah likes to listen to classical music, both Indian western, and travel. n