Seasoned technical leader, entrepreneur, and applied scientist with a successful commercialization track record. Over the course of my career I have secured > $10M in funding (investments + grants), while co-authoring 2 book chapters and publishing more than 60 journal articles with highly cited works in Science, Nature, Nature Physics, Nature Photonics, Nature Nanotechnology, and Nature Communications. I was included in the 2024 cohort of the Photonics100 and elected Fellow of the Optica in Autumn 2023.While living and working In Vienna, Austria, I founded Crystalline Mirror Solutions (CMS) in 2012 together with Markus Aspelmeyer. As a spin-off of fundamental quantum optomechanics research, CMS commercialized high-performance monocrystalline interference coatings for laser-based metrology and manufacturing. I led the company from its inception to a headcount of 16 with annual revenue of ~$2M, overseeing locations in Vienna, Austria and Santa Barbara, CA, plus our epitaxial growth facility in Zurich, Switzerland. Following 7 years of growth, CMS was successfully acquired by Thorlabs in Dec. 2019.Prior to founding CMS I had a unique and diverse career path. Since completing my doctorate in Electronic & Photonic Materials from UCSB in 2005 (co-advised by Noel MacDonald and John Bowers), I have held positions spanning the first employee of a high-tech startup (Aerius Photonics LLC, now FLIR Electro-Optical Components), a postdoctoral staff member at LLNL, a Marie Curie Fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation (headed by Anton Zeilinger, Physics Nobel Laureate 2022), then a university assistant at Universität Wien Fakultät für Physik.Visit my Google Scholar page for my full publication list:https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_LZzvnQAAAAJ&hl=enDownload my CV here:https://aomicro.com/GD_Cole_CV.pdfExpertise: Design, fabrication, and characterization of optical microsystems for sensing and communication. Pioneering advancements in fusion / wafer bonding for high-performance discrete optics and heterogenous integration. Diode laser and amplifier development, with an emphasis on surface-normal photonics, including vertical-cavity lasers and amplifiers, as well as high-power semiconductor and solid-state disk lasers. Novel micro- and nanofab techniques, with a focus on compound and elemental semiconductors. Quantum effects in micro- and mechanical systems and laser based precision measurement for optical metrology. Traditional manufacturing experience covering CNC, plus manual mills and lathes.