May 15, 2009

Colloquium Topic: Journey of a Physicist in the Engineering World

Dr. Kal Shastri received his PhD in Elementary Particle Physics from Columbia University in 1985. He made several transitions in his career to be a successful serial entrepreneur in the engineering business, while still maintaining his technology roots. The talk will focus on his decision making process, experience, and the lessons learned during this time. The technical, entrepreneurial and business details will be fluidly integrated in describing Dr. Shastri’s journey through this time.

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Colloquium Speaker: Kal Shastri

Kal Shastri received his PhD in Physics from Columbia University in 1985. Dr. Shastri worked at AT&T Bell Laboratory from 1985 to 1995, working on physical layer circuits for optical communication applications. He also designed 2nd generation hardware accelerator micro-controllers and contributed to the system level design. He consulted with Bell Laboratory in 1996 and designed CMOS PLL (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor phase-locked loop) and clock distribution architecture for multiple systems. Dr. Shastri founded AANetcom in 1997. AANetcom was the first company to solve high speed electrical interconnect problems by commercializing multiple channel CMOS Serdes (Serializer/DeSerializer) in 1999. Dr. Shastri founded Lightwire (SiOptical) in 2002 with the goal of solving high speed optical interconnects using CMOS Photonics.