Leda Maria Lunardi is a Brazilian-American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

whose research concerns

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

, photonics, and optoelectronics. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

Education and career

Lunardi is from a large Brazilian family, part of the first generation of her family to go to college. She followed a pre-medical track in high school, but after developing an aversion to the internals of human bodies, changed her focus, switching to physics on the advice of a teacher. She studied physics at the

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

, earning a bachelor's degree in 1976 and a master's degree in 1979. She completed a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1985. She joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1986, and worked for AT&T until moving to JDS Uniphase in 1999. In 2003, she returned to academia as a professor at North Carolina State University. From 2005 to 2007 she served as a program director for Electrical, Cyber and Communication Systems at the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Book

With Alice C. Parker, Lunardi is co-editor of the book ''Women in Microelectronics'' (Springer, 2020), with chapters written by researchers in this area detailing their lives and research.

Recognition

Lunardi won the Achievement Award of the

IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society The IEEE Photonics Society, formerly the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (LEOS), is a society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), focused on the scientific and engineering knowledge about the field of quantum ele ...

in 2000. She was named a

Fellow of the IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

in 2002, "for contributions to the development of high-performance 1.55 um monolithically integrated photoreceiver for optical communication".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lunardi, Leda Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American electrical engineers American women engineers Brazilian engineers Brazilian women academics Brazilian emigrants to the United States University of São Paulo alumni Cornell University alumni Scientists at Bell Labs North Carolina State University faculty Fellows of the IEEE 21st-century American women