The 2024-2026 Board Member of
The Light Millennium, Charitable
Global Human Advancement Organization (2001, New York)

Governing Body

Biographic Sketch: DR. VICTOR B. LAWRENCE

Dr. Victor Lawrence retired from Bell Laboratories as Vice President, of Advanced Communications Technology – AT&T and Lucent Technologies.  He later joined the Stevens Institute of Technology, where he is a Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Center for Intelligent Networked Systems (iNetS), and former Associate Dean and Bachelor Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

Dr. Lawrence was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2016. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of AT&T Bell Labs, and a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.  He is the 2023 recipient of the R&D Council of New Jersey’s Science & Technology Medal.

While at Bell Labs, Dr. Lawrence led the development of technologies for worldwide communications networks and managed an R&D staff of over 500 scientists/engineers and a budget of about $100M annually. During his career, his personal research activities provided major contributions to gigabit photonic and wireless networking, signal processing, modem technology, digital techniques, ATM and IP switching and protocols, HDTV, DSL, and speech and audio coding, among other areas. 

Dr. Lawrence’s innovations in the fields of digital signal processing led to the transition from analog to digital networks and to the development of technologies for early access to the Internet and worldwide data communications, including the first chip sets used in voice terminals for secure communications worldwide and the first PCMCIA modules for wireless data modems.

The work conducted by his teams impacted not only entertainment video but also broadcast satellite radio. They built the first studio encoder and receiver chip set for the Sirius Radio Satellite system.

Dr. Lawrence co-founded four successful venture companies: Globespan Semiconductors Inc., Elemedia, Lucent’s Internet software business, Lucent Digital Video, and Lucent Digital Radio, iBiquity.

Dr. Lawrence has been a key proponent of R&D globalization. At Bell Labs, he directly supported systems engineering developments and practices in Malaysia, New Zealand, China, Brazil, and other countries. He was a Member of South African President Mbeki’s International Advisory group on ICT, Chairman of the Broadband Advisory Committee to the South African Government, and a Director of the Board of Telkom South Africa. He championed bringing fiber optic connectivity to Africa. 

Beginning in 1996, Lawrence lectured for several years at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, formerly the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, Princeton University, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley

Since 2015, Lawrence has made significant contributions to the development of STEM education for high school and middle school students in New Jersey. He currently serves as a Trustee of the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning (NJCTL).

He has received many awards and recognitions including a 1997 Primetime Emmy Award for the HDTV Grand Alliance Standard, the 2004 IEEE Award in International Communication, and the 2016 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal for technical innovation and leadership in the systems engineering of worldwide data communications networks. In May 2023, he received a Doctor of Science, honoris causa degree from Dominican University in New York. 

Dr. Lawrence is the co-author of five books. He holds 53 U.S. and international patents and has published over 100 papers in referenced journals and conference proceedings. He has served as Chairman of the IEEE Awards Board and Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Communications.

Dr. Lawrence received a B.Sc.  in 1968 from the University of London, United Kingdom, a D.I.C. in 1969 from Imperial College, and a Ph.D. in  1973 in Electrical Engineering from the University of London, Imperial College in the United Kingdom.

2024-2026 Governing Body

www.lmglobal.org