Dr. Robert G. W. Brown is a trained physicist and engineer. His research interests include nanotechnology, photonics, optics, medical physics and fluid dynamics. He has authored more than 120 journal articles and holds 64 patents, several of which have been successfully commercialized.  
 

At the University of California (Irvine) Brown is an adjunct full professor in the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic and a visiting professor in the University’s Department of Computer Science. He is also a Special Professor at the University of Nottingham, UK.
 

Brown led nano-plasmonic research at Rockwell Collins’ Advanced Technology Center. He was CTO to Ostendo Technologies, a specialist display company in California. He has served as professor and director of nanotechnology for Northern Ireland; executive director of the UK Institute of Physics and head of optoelectronics research and development for Sharp Laboratories.

 

As a principal scientist in the UK Ministry of Defence’s Royal Radar Establishment, Brown was responsible for inventing new technologies that have since been developed into successful products for experiments related to jet engines, macro-molecules, US submarines and Space Shuttle instrumentation.

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Brown was awarded the UK Ministry of Defence Prize for ‘Outstanding Technology Transfer’, as well as Sharp Corporation’s prize for his novel laser-diode invention, and, together with his team at the UK Institute of Physics, a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.  

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Brown is a former CEO of the American Institute of Physics (2015-17) and Vice Chairman of the Tesla Foundation Board. He is an elected member of the European Academy of the Sciences and Arts (Academia Europaea).

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Brown is editor-in-chief of the Handbook of Optoelectronics and is co-editor-in-chief of Optics and Optoelectronics.  He has served as a consultant to NASA’s Microgravity Experimental Advisory Board and the UK Home Office Science and Technology Reference Committee.

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Prof Brown has extensive business experience in China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, USA and EU.