Dr. Eric R. Fossum spent his career working on solid-state image sensors. While at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech) in Pasadena CA in the 1990’s, he was charged with shrinking the size of charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras on interplanetary spacecraft, reducing mass, power, and radiation sensitivity while maintaining scientific imaging quality. He invented the CMOS active-pixel image sensor with intra-pixel charge transfer or camera-on-a-chip, and led its subsequent development. With colleagues from JPL, he co- founded Photobit Corp. to commercialize the CMOS image sensors for webcams, automobile safety, swallowable pill cameras, dental x-ray sensors, and high frame-rate image sensors. One of the most significant impacts came from its adoption in mobile phone cameras, leading to widespread use of the technology in consumer devices. Today, billions of cameras are produced each year using the NASA/JPL technology. A “camera in every pocket” has impacted almost every person on the planet through photos and videos shared on social media and citizen reporting of world events. It has aided security, law enforcement and social justice.
Recently, he and his students created the CMOS quanta image sensor capable of counting individual photons of light, providing the ultimate in camera sensitivity, and later co- founding Gigajot Technology Inc. to commercialize this new technology.
Dr. Fossum was born and raised in Connecticut and attended public school. He received his BS in Physics and Engineering from Trinity College in Hartford, and his PhD from Yale University. Prior to his work at JPL, he was a faculty member at Columbia University. After leading several startups, consulting and co-founding the Int. Image Sensor Society, he joined Dartmouth in 2010. He holds 185 U.S. patents. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Laureate. For relaxation, he and his wife enjoy their hobby farm in New Hampshire.
