Narinder S. Kapany

The “father of fiber optics,” Narinder Kapany grew up in Dehradun in northern India, where a teacher informed him that light only traveled in a straight line. He took this as a challenge and made the study of light his life work. He studied physics at Agra University and went on to advanced studies in optics at the Imperial College of Science in London. In 1954 Nature published his report of successfully transmitting images through fiber optical bundles. The following year he went to the United States to the University of Rochester to teach. In 1960 he moved to Palo Alto, Calif., and established Optics Technology. He also founded Kaptron Inc. and K2 Optronics. He has taught at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford University. Kapany was the founding chairman and major funder of the Sikh Foundation, which runs programs in publishing, academia, and the arts.