David H. Auston

David Auston is President of the Kavli Foundation in Oxnard, California. His career encompasses a range of experience in industry and higher education. He has been a member of the technical staff and department head at AT&T's Bell Laboratories (now Lucent Technologies); professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics and Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University; Provost of Rice University; and President of Case Western Reserve University.

David Auston has contributed to research in the fields of lasers, nonlinear optics, and solid-state materials. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Optical Society of America, and the American Physical Society.

A native of Toronto, Canada, David Auston earned bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering physics and electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.