Research Interests

S. J. Ben Yoo serves as Director of UC Davis CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society) and Professor of Electrical Engineering at University of California at Davis (UC Davis). His research at UC Davis includes future Internet architectures, high-performance optical switching systems, optically-interconnected computing systems, nano photonic-electronic systems integration for next generation networking and computing systems, and bio-inspired cognitive networking. His recent demonstrations included optical label switching routers scalable to 42 Petabit/sec aggregate capacity with more than 1000 times improvement in performance/power efficiency over conventional electronic routers. Prior to joining UC Davis in 1999, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Bellcore, leading technical efforts in optical networking research and systems integration for DARPA sponsored MONET and NGI projects. His research activities at Bellcore included optical-label switching for the next-generation Internet (NGI), reconfigurable optical networks, wavelength interchanging cross connects, wavelength converters, vertical-cavity lasers, and high-speed modulators. He also participated in the advanced technology demonstration network/multiwavelength optical networking (ATD/MONET) systems integration, and a number of standardization activities. Prior to joining Bellcore in 1991, he conducted research on nonlinear optical processes in quantum wells, a four-wave-mixing study of relaxation mechanisms in dye molecules, and ultrafast diffusion-driven photodetectors at Stanford University (BS84, MS86, PhD91, Stanford University). Prof. Yoo serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, and Guest Editor for IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology, IEEE Journal of Special Topics in Quantum Electronics, and OSA Journal of Optical Networks. Prof. Yoo is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of OSA, and a recipient of the DARPA Award for Sustained Excellence in 1997, the Bellcore CEO Award in 1998, and the Mid-Career Research Faculty Award (UC Davis) in 2004.