John Abbott, PhD

Development Fellow (Retired), Corning Incorporated 

John Abbott (BS ’74) retired as a Development Fellow from Corning Incorporated in 2023, with 44 years of experience in industrial applied math and modelling, notably in areas of optical fibers for telecommunications and the very flat glass used for displays in TVs/laptops/cell phones. He is a recognized expert in the area of multimode fibers for data center communications, with two book chapters and more than 15 patents for process, measurements, and product design. A senior member of IEEE and the Optical Society of America (now Optica) he was an assistant editor of J. Lightwave Technology. He participated for more than twenty years in the IEEE 802. 3 Ethernet standards committee and collaborated on project teams creating standards from 1 Gb/s to 400 Gb/s per channel.  

He holds a PhD in Applied Math from MIT and a BS in Math from Caltech.  

In addition to his work with Corning, he has been active in the local community with nine years as an elected school board member in New York State. He also has been active with SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Math), serving on the Industry Committee, and has been a member of the Industrial Advisory Board for the Department of Mathematical Sciences at NJIT since the mid-1990s. 

John enjoys hiking and is active with the Finger Lakes Land Trust.   

John has served on the Caltech Alumni Association Board of Directors since 2024.