National Academy of Engineering Inducts Two Distinguished ECE Alums
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The prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has inducted two of the UMass Amherst Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department’s most renowned alumni as NAE members: Victor Bahl (PhD, 1997), a technical fellow and chief technology officer at the Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington; and Eric Swanson (BS,1982), a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to any engineer. See NAE inductees.
The NAE is inducting Bahl “for contributions to wireless networking, indoor localization, and edge computing, and for leadership in the mobile-computing community.” It has been said that Bahl helped create a paradigm shift in cloud computing with his research on the introduction of edge computing.
Bahl explains that in his role at Microsoft, “I pursue research in a variety of topics, including: 5G (converging cloud and communications industries), edge computing, live video analytics, mobile computing, wireless systems, cloud services, and data-center networking and management.”
According to Bahl, “In Redmond, I lead a group that executes our vision through research, technology transfers to product groups, new-product incubations, industry partnerships, and associated policy engagement with governments and research institutions around the world.
Bahl’s Microsoft group—the Mobility & Networking Research Group—has published well over 600 papers, created a portfolio of more than 400 patents, won numerous prestigious international awards, and received worldwide press accolades in over 1,000 articles. In addition to their published research, the group has a broad impact on numerous Microsoft products, including Azure, Bing, Office 365, Windows, and Xbox. Bahl founded the group in 2001.
Notably, Bahl also designed and deployed the world’s first public Wi-Fi hotspot, in the Crossroads Shopping Center of Bellevue, Washington, in 1999.
For his seminal contributions, many organizations have honored Bahl with prestigious research and leadership awards. These include the two top awards in networking given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2018 and 2019 and two Association for Computing Machinery lifetime-achievement awards in mobile systems (2013) and in distinguished service and leadership (2018).
The NAE is inducting Swanson “for contributions and entrepreneurship in biomedical imaging and optical communications.” Swanson and two colleagues (James G. Fujimoto of MIT and David Huang of the Casey Eye Institute at the Oregon Health & Science University) invented optical coherence tomography (OCT), which has had a transformative impact on ophthalmology and the detection of sight-impairing eye diseases. OCT is also used widely in imaging within the coronary artery to understand, detect, and treat deadly cardiovascular disease, and also in a wide range of other medical and non-medical applications.
OCT is a trailblazing technology that makes detailed and unprecedented images of body tissues, especially the retinal tissue in the back of the eye, without pain or discomfort. Ophthalmology offices around the globe now commonly use OCT testing at a rate of about one scan every second. It is estimated that roughly 40,000,000 OCT exams are done worldwide each year.
For his contributions to OCT, Swanson has obtained numerous honors, including being the co-recipient of the 2012 Champalimaud Vision Award, receiving the 2017 Russ Prize from the NAE, being presented with the 2022 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and accepting the 2023 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
Swanson was elected a fellow of the IEEE in 2017 for contributions to OCT and leadership in optical networking. In 2002 he was elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America (now Optica) for pioneering contributions to the fields of intersatellite-laser-communication systems, fiber-optic-communication networks, and biomedical-optical imaging.
Swanson is a cofounder of the world’s first two OCT companies as well as two telecommunication companies: Advanced Ophthalmic Devices (an ophthalmic OCT company acquired by Zeiss Meditec in 1994); Lightlab Imaging (a cardiovascular OCT company acquired by Abbot); Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq IPO 1999); and Acacia Communications (Nasdaq IPO 2016). These companies have evolved over time and have shipped many billions of dollars in products around the world.
Swanson is also one of 17 innovation pioneers being honored in the 2025 class of National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees.