Dr. Robert Byer, a founding member of CCST and Council Chair Emeritus, is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Applied Physics, at Stanford University. He is also Chair of the Department of Applied Physics and Director of the Hansen Experimental Physics Lab at Stanford.

Byer received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Applied Physics from Stanford, 1969. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences; and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the Lasers and Electro-optics Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Laser Institute of America and the Optical Society of America.

Dr. Byer is author of more than 350 technical publications, and is the holder of more than 30 U.S. Patents. Byer cofounded Quanta Ray Inc. in 1975 and Lightwave Electronics Corp. in 1984, and is a member of the NRC Committee on Optical Science and Engineering. His numerous honors and awards include the A. L. Schawlow Award, Laser Institute of America, 1998; the R.W. Wood Prize, Optical Society of America, 1998; and the Quantum Electronics Award, Lasers and Electro-optics Society of the IEEE, 1996