Balaji Srinivasan obtained his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of New Mexico, USA. He subsequently worked as a Senior Development Scientist at Corning Incorporated, USA, where he led technology development efforts related to 3D Optical Cross-connects and Channel Selectable Tunable Filters. Since 2004 he has been with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras as a faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering, presently as Associate Professor. Balaji’s research interests span the development of active and passive optical components / subsystems for distributed fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers. Balaji has co-authored more than 120 journal and international conference publications. He also has seven patents to his credit. Balaji presently serves in the Editorial Board of the Optics Express journal, and is one of the Directors of Unilumen Photonics Pvt Ltd, a fiber laser company incubated by IIT Madras. He is the winner of the prestigious Collegiate Inventor Award in 2000, New Focus Student Award in 1999, and is a frequent reviewer for journals published by the Optical Society of America and IEEE. He has served as Member of the Photonics Working Group of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITy), Government of India, the Editorial Board of the Springer Photonic Network Communications Journal, and as a Chair for the 2012 International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics. For his professional accomplishments, he has been awarded Senior Membership in OSA.