Henry Kressel (born c. 1934) is an American engineer, scientist, and financial executive. In 1980, Kressel was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

for pioneering research in opto-electronic devices with specific emphasis on semiconductor lasers. He is a partner and the senior managing director of the

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

firm

Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. The firm currently has over ...

. He has been a board member of

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...

since 2001.

Early life and education

Kressel's parents and sister were murdered in

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, after which Kressel emigrated to the United States. He entered Chaim Berlin High School in 1947 and graduated in 1951. Kressel earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Yeshiva College, a master's in applied physics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, an MBA from

The Wharton School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in P ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and a Ph.D. in material science, also from the University of Pennsylvania.

Career

Kressel joined

RCA Laboratories The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

in 1959, and spent 23 years there. He was in charge of development and commercialization of research developments in a variety of fields including light sources, light detectors, and integrated circuits. The development of the first practical

laser diode The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD, or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a diode pumped directly with e ...

s and the first

epitaxial Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystalline layers are formed with one or more well-defined orientations with respect to the crystalline seed layer. The deposited crystalline film is called an epit ...

silicon

solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

are also attributed to him. He eventually became vice president of solid-state electronic research and development. Kressel joined

in 1983.

Memberships and awards

Kressel received an honorary doctorate from

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

. He is a 1974

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

and was the founding president of

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 1977. He received the IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984 and the IEEE David Sarnoff Award in 1985 for "contributions to electronic devices". He was elected to the

in 1980 and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He is on the board of directors of

, Aicent, EnStorage, MACH, Suniva and

Telcordia Technologies iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...

. He has been on the board of directors of Yeshiva University's

Sy Syms School of Business Syms School of Business (formerly the Syms School of Business) is Yeshiva University business school. It offers both undergraduate and graduate business programs at the Wilf Campus in New York Washington Heights neighborhood, and at the Beren Ca ...

since 2004, and is the chairman of the board of trustees of Yeshiva University. In 2008, Kressel created a scholarship at Yeshiva University in his own name, the Henry Kressel Research Scholarship.

Patents and publications

Kressel holds 33 United States patents and has published more than 120 papers. He has also published six books: * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kressel, Henry Living people 1930s births American financial businesspeople Directors of SRI International IEEE Centennial Medal laureates Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Physical Society Harvard University alumni Jewish American scientists Jewish engineers Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Warburg Pincus people Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni Yeshiva University alumni 21st-century American Jews