Peter C. Schultz, Ph.D., is co-inventor of the fiber optics now used worldwide for telecommunications. He is an internationally-recognized scientist and has received numerous awards for his technical achievements. In 1993 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and in 2000 received the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton for his accomplishments (the highest technology award of the US government). Since 1991, he has been a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Election to membership is one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer. He is an expert in fiber optic technology (including telecommunication fibers and deployment, as well as specialty fibers for sensors) and general materials technology. He has been a resident of St Thomas since 2001.
Since 2001 he has provided technical and business consulting services to numerous companies (including Intel, Sematech International, Yazaki, Furukawa and SPI Lasers plc) and extensive expert witness services for several law firms, through Peter Schultz Consulting, LLC. He serves (2001–present) as senior advisor and sole outside Board member of OFS Fitel (the $500+ million AT&T fiber optics business unit acquired by Furukawa Electric Group in 2001) and as Board member, Secretary and advisor (2010-present) of viNGN (Virgin Islands Next Generation Network), a government-owned company building and operating an open access all-fiber telecom system in the US Virgin Islands. He serves on the Technical Advisory Board of a six year $10 million project sponsored by the British government to develop the next generation of fiber communication technology. He is also President of a research company (BioSensor Inc., founded in 1997) developing several novel medical sensors based on Russian technology. One of these sensors is currently undergoing formal clinical trials at Cornell Weill Medical Center in NYC.
He was President and Chief Technology Officer of Heraeus Inc. (1988-2001), the 900-employee US subsidiary of a multibillion dollar private German company serving the telecom, semiconductor and optics markets. He was also VP Technology (1984-1988) for SpecTran Corp (a large Massachusetts-based fiber optics manufacturer) and Senior Scientist for Corning, Inc. (1967-1984). He is a graduate of Rutgers University (B.S.1964, Ph.D.1967) and the MIT Sloan School Senior Executive Program (1984). Peter Schultz holds 26 patents, has written over 22 research papers and is the recipient of numerous other awards recognizing his achievements, including the American Innovator Award (first recipient-US Dept. of Commerce 1995) presented by Ron Brown (Secretary of Commerce) and the Czech Gold Medal for Achievement presented by President Havel in 2002.
He is a popular invited speaker at numerous conferences and meetings covering the history, deployment and future trends of fiber optic communications. He has taught courses at Cornell University (Visiting Professor Materials Science), George Washington University (Continuing Engineering Program Professor) and University of Virginia (Visiting Professor of Darden School).