Leda Maria Lunardi is a Brazilian-American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

whose research concerns

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

photonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in the form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. E ...

, and

optoelectronics Optoelectronics (or optronics) is the study and application of electronic devices and systems that find, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, ''light'' often includes invisible forms of radi ...

. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

Education and career

Lunardi is from a large Brazilian family, part of the first generation of her family to go to college. She followed a pre-medical track in high school, but after developing an aversion to the internals of human bodies, changed her focus, switching to physics on the advice of a teacher. She studied physics at the

University of São Paulo The Universidade de São Paulo (, USP) is a public research university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and the largest public university in Brazil. The university was founded on 25 January 1934, regrouping already existing schools in ...

, earning a bachelor's degree in 1976 and a master's degree in 1979. She completed a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1985. She joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1986, and worked for AT&T until moving to

JDS Uniphase JDS Uniphase Corporation (JDSU) was an American company that designed and manufactured products for optical communications networks, communications test and measurement equipment, lasers, optical solutions for authentication and decorative applica ...

in 1999. In 2003, she returned to academia as a professor at North Carolina State University. From 2005 to 2007 she served as a program director for Electrical, Cyber and Communication Systems at the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Book

With Alice C. Parker, Lunardi is co-editor of the book ''Women in Microelectronics'' (Springer, 2020), with chapters written by researchers in this area detailing their lives and research.

Recognition

Lunardi won the Achievement Award of the

IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society The IEEE Photonics Society, formerly the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), is a society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), focused on the scientific and engineering knowledge about the field of quantum el ...

in 2000. She was named a

Fellow of the IEEE A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

in 2002, "for contributions to the development of high-performance 1.55 um monolithically integrated photoreceiver for optical communication".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lunardi, Leda Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American electrical engineers American women engineers Brazilian engineers Brazilian women academics Brazilian emigrants to the United States University of São Paulo alumni Cornell University alumni Scientists at Bell Labs North Carolina State University faculty Fellows of the IEEE 21st-century American women