Michael S. Lebby

Michael S. Lebby
PhD, MBA, DEng, CEng

President and CEO

Michael Lebby joined OIDA as Executive Director in 2005 and became its president and CEO in February, 2006.  Lebby is driving new directions at OIDA in optoelectronics and photonics that include areas such as green photonics, plastic photonics, terabit photonics, display photonics, bio-photonics, and sensing photonics.   

With more than 175 U.S. patents issued in the field of optoelectronics, Lebby has been cited by the USPTO to be in the most prolific 75 inventors in the country from 1988-1997.  Lebby’s career has spanned all aspects of the optoelectronics business ranging from research and development, operations, manufacturing, and finance, to sales, marketing, and investing.

In 1985, Lebby’s research took him to AT&T Bell Laboratories, followed in 1989 by a move to Motorola’s Phoenix Corporate Research Laboratory in Phoenix, Arizona. Lebby researched and developed III-V compound semiconductor devices and focused his work in bringing the VCSEL technology to full scale manufacturing.  Lebby co-founded a market changing datacom product called Optobus™.

In August 1998, Lebby joined AMP as a member of the Global Optoelectronics Division's management team, where he was responsible for growing AMP's fiber optic datacom and telecom business through external interactions that include mergers, acquisitions strategic alliances, and technical strategic planning. In 1999, Lebby joined Intel as a corporate investor and was responsible for sourcing, negotiating, and closing private placement equity deals in the optical networking, component, and semiconductor arenas. Lebby served as Intel’s board observer on a number of photonics based start-ups.

In 2001, Lebby founded a new fiber optics company, Ignis Optics, where he served as the CEO.  He led the company to secure a multinational customer base through it’s development of 10Gbps transceiver products. Ignis Optics was acquired by Bookham Technology in October 2003 and Lebby became responsible for corporate and technical strategy at Bookham Technology.

In 2005, the IEEE Board of Directors elected Lebby to IEEE Fellow for contributions to optoelectronics technology. In 2007, Lebby became an OSA Fellow for his photonics leadership and contributions to VCSEL technology.  In 2008, Lebby was elected into the Cosmos Club in Washington DC.

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