Website of

Eric R. Fossum

Eric R. Fossum is best known for the invention of the CMOS image sensor “camera-on-a-chip” used in billions of cameras, from smart phones to web cameras to pill cameras and many other applications. He is a solid-state image sensor device physicist and engineer, and his career has included academic and government research, and entrepreneurial leadership. He is the John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor for Emerging Technologies at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he teaches, performs research on image sensors, and directs the School’s Ph.D. Innovation Program. He also serves as Dartmouth’s Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer.

Born and raised in Connecticut, he attended public school in Simsbury and spent Saturdays at the Talcott Mountain Science Center in Avon. He received his B.S. in Physics and Engineering from Trinity College in Hartford and the Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University in New Haven. He was a member of Columbia University’s Electrical Engineering faculty and then joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology where he managed JPL’s image sensor and focal-plane technology research and advanced development. While at JPL, he invented the intra-pixel charge transfer CMOS active-pixel-sensor camera-on-a-chip technology and led its development and subsequent transfer of the technology to US industry. Nearly all the six (6) billion CMOS cameras made each year use the intra-pixel charge transfer invention. Dr. Fossum co-founded Photobit Corporation to commercialize the technology and served in several top management roles including Chairman and CEO. Photobit was acquired by Micron Technology Inc. He was Chairman and CEO of Siimpel Corporation developing MEMS-based camera modules with autofocus and shutter functions for cell phones. He was a consultant with Samsung Electronics working on 3D image sensors and strategic issues for several years before joining Dartmouth. He co-founded Gigajot Technology Inc. with his former Dartmouth PhD students to commercialize the photon-counting Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) technology and served as Chairman.

In 2017 Dr. Fossum received the Queen Elizabeth Prize from HRH Prince Charles, considered by many as the Nobel Prize of Engineering “for the creation of digital imaging sensors,” along with three others. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF), elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and selected as a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Other honors include the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy® Award, NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, the IEEE Andrew Grove Award and Medal, the OSA and IS&T Edwin H. Land Medal, the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Medal, the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal, the American Photographic Society’s Progress Medal, the SMPTE Camera Origination and Imaging Medal, induction in the Space Technology Hall of Fame and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. He was awarded Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal and the inaugural Trinity College President’s Medal for Science and Innovation. An early Photobit sensor and camera were on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s Inventing in America exhibit and at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum at USPTO, and Photobit’s PB-100 “camera-on-a-chip” is in the IEEE Spectrum Chip Hall of Fame.

Dr. Fossum has published over 330 technical papers and holds over 180 US patents. He co-founded the International Image Sensor Society (IISS), was its first President and Chaired the IISS Board of Directors. He is a Life Fellow member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow member of Optica, formerly the Optical Society of America (OSA), and a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

He volunteers for the IISS Governance Advisory Committee, the NIHF Selection Committee and Selection Board, the NAE Committee on Membership and the Board of Trustees for the Talcott Mountain Science Center and Academy. He has served on the Board of Trustees of Trinity College, the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Inventors, as an AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador, on the Leadership Council of the Yale University School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Peer Selection Committee for the NAE, the Fellow Selection Committee of the NAI, He also actively supports Camp Invention and the Collegiate Inventors Competition, two programs operated by NIHF. For relaxation, he and his wife operate a hobby farm in New Hampshire.

Site Links

Curriculum Vitae / Resume ♦ Publications ♦ Patents ♦ NIHF Video

Media Interviews ♦ Some Presentations ♦ Some Articles of Interest

External Links

Profile at Dartmouth ♦ Profile at Google Scholar

Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth

IISS ♦ NAI ♦ NAE ♦ NIHF ♦ Trinity ♦ Yale

Updated 17-March-2024