Brian Culshaw was born in Lancashire, England, on Sept. 24, 1945. He graduated from University College London with a first-class honors degree in physics in 1966 and a PhD in electrical engineering in 1970. He has held appointments at Cornell University (1970), Bell Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada (1971-1973), University College London (1974-1983), Stanford University (1982), and has been professor of electronics at the University of Strathclyde since September 1983, where he set up the Optoelectronics Division within the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and has acted as vice dean of the faculty of engineering.
Prof. Culshaw’s personal research activities have centered upon optical fiber sensor system and network studies and novel technologies for optical fiber instrumentation, including pressure measurement systems, strain and temperature measuring systems, gyroscopes, and structural assessment techniques. He has also been involved in journal and book publishing in both editorial and author roles.
He was de facto technical chair of the first (1983) International Conference on Optical Fibre Sensors (OFS) and initiated European meetings in smart structures and the EWOFS workshop series in optical fiber sensor technology, the first of a series regarded as the definitive meeting. The two later consolidated in the corresponding communities. Predominantly with SPIE, he has organized numerous other conferences and workshops in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, including a precursor to Photonics Europe. However, undoubtedly the most challenging was OFS(C) in Wuhan, China, in 1991.
In 2004, Prof. Culshaw was elected secretary, then served as a director, and during 2007 as president of SPIE, the Society of Photo-Optical Engineers, the largest international society serving the interests of optical and photonics scientists and engineers. Based in the United States, in Bellingham on the Washington coast just south of Vancouver, BC, Canada, the society also has an office in Europe and extensive interests in the Far East.
Prof. Culshaw is a founding director of OptoSci Ltd., a spin-out that was established in 1994 with the primary objective of exploiting innovative optical technologies developed within University of Strathclyde. He has recently also co-founded Solus Sensors to exploit specific opportunities in the oil and gas sectors. He has consulted to numerous industrial organizations in the UK and abroad on fiber sensor technologies, their applications, smart structures, and related techniques.