Dean Manzione Elected Vice President of CASE

CETA’s dean, Lou Manzione, has been elected Vice President/President-Elect of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE). His term as vice president, beginning July 1, 2010, will run for two years, after which he will succeed to the position of president for two years. During his term, Dean Manzione states that he would like to make science and engineering more important to Connecticut’s economic vitality, contributing to a workforce that competes effectively in the global economy.

Dr. Manzione has been a member of the Academy since 2006. In that same year, he was appointed chair of the Academy’s Communications and Information Systems Technical Board. In 2008, he was elected to fill a vacancy on the Academy’s Council and has served as committee chair on two studies: Advanced Communications Technologies and A Study of Weight Station Technologies and Practices.

Dr. Manzione earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry at The Cooper Union in 1975 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1979. He spent most of his career in industry at Bell Labs, where his research focused on the manufacture of optical fiber and integrated circuits. He patented the process for purifying the reagents used to produce optical fibers and made significant contributions to the plastic encapsulation and packaging of integrated circuits. He also initiated the antenna engineering effort at Bell Labs in 1997, the result of which is more than 3 million antennas deployed worldwide. In addition, he led the establishment of a Bell Labs Research Division in Ireland, which has been awarded $55 million in Irish government funding and which involves close to 100 academic partners.

The Academy is a private, nonprofit institution patterned after the national Academy of Sciences. It identifies and studies issues and technological advances that should be of concern to Connecticut and provides expert advice on science- and technology-related issues to state government and other Connecticut entities.

In addition to his service with the Academy, Dr. Manzione leads the Nanotechnology Curriculum Committee of the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and was named chair of the Connecticut Broadband Coordinating Council in 2008.