Peter Winzer is a distinguished member of the technical staff in the optical networks team in the Bell Laboratories of Lucent Technologies.

His academic work, largely supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), was related to laser radar for space-borne Doppler wind measurement applications and to highly sensitive free-space optical communication systems. After joining Bell Labs (Holmdel, NJ/USA) as a Member of Technical Staff in 2000, he focused on optical fiber telecommunications and high-capacity data networking. He has published extensively in the field of optical communications and networking, and holds several related patents. He is a member of the Optical Society of America (OSA), a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and serves on the committees of various international conferences.

Winzer received his Dipl.-Ing. and Dr. techn. degrees in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and the venia docendi (Univ. Doz.) in photonic communications in 2003 from the Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria.

• The Power of A Critical Mass (September 20, 2005)