Eric Udd

Eric Udd, President of Columbia Gorge Research has been deeply involved with fiber optic sensors since 1977 and helped pioneer early work on fiber optic gyros, fiber optic smart structures for health monitoring, high temperature and high speed fiber optic sensors systems, multi-axis strain sensors and fiber optic pressure sensors. He worked
for McDonnell Douglas from 1977 to 1993, where he managed over 25 DoD, NASA and internally funded fiber optic sensor programs. Mr. Udd has held a series of positions moving from Engineer/Scientist, to Manager-Fiber Optics, and in 1989 was appointed as one of 40 McDonnell Douglas Fellows. In 1993, he started Blue Road Research and directed the growth of the company through its acquisition by Standard MEMS in January 2000. In January 2006, Mr. Udd left Blue Road Research to found Columbia Gorge Research. He started Columbia Gorge Research with the intent of focusing strongly on the objective of moving fiber optic sensor technology to the field quickly and efficiently supporting both end users and developers of the fiber optic technology. These efforts have supported aerospace and defense, oil and gas, civil structure, medical and electric power applications.

Mr. Udd has 54 issued US Patents and several more pending on fiber optic technology, has written and or presented over 200 papers and chaired over 30 international conferences on fiber optic sensor technology. He books include Fiber Optic Sensors: An Introduction for Engineers and Scientists, Wiley, 1991 (second edition 2011), Fiber Optic Smart Structures, Wiley, 1995, Field Guide to Fiber Optic Sensors, SPIE Press, 2014, Design and Development of Fiber Optic Gyroscopes, SPIE Press, 2019. Mr. Udd is a Fellow of SPIE (1989) and OSA 2010) and a member of IEEE and the LEOS. Mr. Udd has been awarded the Richardson Medal for 2009 by the Optical Society of America for his work on fiber optic sensors and the field of fiber optic smart structures.