Alan Willner has worked at Bell Labs and at Bellcore, and is presently Professor of Electrical Engineering at USC. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

He has received the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House, the Packard Foundation Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Fulbright Foundation Senior Scholar Fellowship, the USC/TRW Best Engineering Teacher Award, and the IEEE LEOS Distinguished Traveling Lecturer Award.

Professor Willner is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. His service includes: Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vice President for Technical Affairs for the IEEE LEOS, Elected Member of the LEOS Board of Governors, Program Co-Chair for CLEO, General Chair of the LEOS Annual Meeting, Co-Chair of the OSA Annual Meeting, General Co-Chair of the OSA Optical Amplifier Meeting, and Steering Committee Member for OFC. He has 250 publications.