Short Biography

Professor Boyd was born in Buffalo, NY. He received the BS degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1977 received the PhD degree in physics from the University of California at Berkeley. His PhD thesis work was supervised by Professor Charles Townes and involves the use of nonlinear optical techniques for infrared detection. Professor Boyd joined the faculty of the Institute of Optics of the University of Rochester in 1977 and is presently Professor of Optics and Professor of Physics.  

Research Overview

In 2010, Professor Boyd was awarded a highly competitive Canada Excellence Research Chair at the University of Ottawa. He currently directs a major research center at the University of Ottawa while still maintaining a significant research presence at the University of Rochester. Professor Boyd’s research areas include optical physics, nonlinear optical interactions, nonlinear optical properties of materials, and applications of nonlinear optics including quantum and nonlinear optical imaging. Professor Boyd is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and a fellow of the American Physical Society. He is author of Radiometry and the Detection of Optical Radiation (1983), Nonlinear Optics (1992), is co-editor of Optical Instabilities (1986) and Contemporary Nonlinear Optics (1992). Professor Boyd has published approximately 350 research papers, has been awarded nine US patents, and has supervised the PhD theses of 33 students. Robert Boyd’s Ottawa website is http://www.boydnlo.ca.

Research Interests

• Nonlinear Optics