Rate My Professor Herbert Winful

Herbert Winful is the Joseph E. and Ann P. Rowe Professor of Electrical Engineering and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering. He holds additional appointments as University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, as well as courtesy Professor of Applied Physics and Physics. Winful received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1981. Before joining the University of Michigan in 1987 as Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, he worked as Principal Member of Technical Staff at GTE Laboratories from 1980 to 1986. He advanced to Full Professor in 1992, was named Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in 1993, and appointed Joseph E. and Ann P. Rowe Professor of Electrical Engineering in 2019.

Winful's research interests center on nonlinear optics and photonics, including fiber laser arrays, nonlinear periodic structures, tunneling time, nanophotonics, semiconductor laser frequency combs, stimulated Brillouin scattering, and coherent laser arrays. He is the author of the book Spatiotemporal dynamics of semiconductor laser arrays (World Scientific Press, 1992) and key publications such as "Tunneling time, the Hartman effect, and superluminality: a proposed resolution of an old paradox" (Physics Reports, 436, 1, 2006), "Nature of superluminal barrier tunneling" (Nature, 424, 638, 2003), "Physical mechanism for apparent superluminality in barrier tunneling" (IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 9, 17, 2003), and "Instability threshold for an array of coupled semiconductor lasers" (Physical Review A, 46, 6093, 1992). His pioneering contributions to nonlinear optical periodic structures and foundational work on nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor laser arrays earned him the 2020 IEEE Photonics Society Quantum Electronics Award. Winful is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, American Physical Society, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has received the Amoco/University Teaching Award, State of Michigan Teaching Award, College of Engineering Teaching Excellence and Service Excellence Awards, EECS Professor of the Year Award (twice), EECS Outstanding Achievement Award, Presidential Young Investigator Award, Tau Beta Pi Distinguished Professor award, and Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award (2021).