A broad education in science, engineering, and math, along with experience in various parts of the lighting industry throughout her career (design, sales, and education), have given Dawn a breadth and depth of knowledge that are unique in this business.

During most of her lighting career, Dawn has also been a volunteer member of the Illuminating Engineering Society. In 2012, she received the IES Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her contributions to the Society. In 2016, Dawn joined IES staff as technical editor. In this role, she reviewed and edited all of IES’s technical documents (e.g., Recommended Practices, Technical Memoranda).

In 2022, Dawn left IES staff and rejoined the Society as a volunteer member, now Emeritus. In 2023, Dawn received the designation of IES Fellow as recognitions of her longtime efforts in lighting education and her contributions to the development of the IES Lighting Library, including reviewing and editing all of the IES technical documents and FIRES articles published from mid-2016 through mid-2022, when she left IES staff. That work continues today on a contractual basis.

Throughout his 35-year career, Brian has dedicated his efforts to balancing the human needs for light with environmental concerns, and always with a reliance on solid science. His lighting career started as a student and Besal Scholar at the University of Kansas Architectural Engineering program, upon which after graduation he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and became an established lighting designer, electrical engineer, lighting educator, and energy conservation advocate.

Brian’s private consultation practice kept him independent while receiving significant appointments such as the Lighting Program Director at the Pacific Energy Center and the Principal Investigator for the US Department of Energy in assessing the effects of light spectrum on vision. He held a 6-year term as the Director of Standards and Research at the Illuminating Engineering Society and was the chief architect modernizing the IES’ standards development process and expanding collaborations with international organizations.

Brian is currently the Chief Programs Officer for DarkSky International, leading the development planning for long-term technical, educational, policy, and collaboration programs.

DarkSky International – www.DarkSky.org

Douglas Steel, PhD is the Founder of NeuroSense. A Translational Scientist, he has worked for the past 20 years in the field of brain-environment interactions, developing alternatives to drug use to improve health outcomes. For the past several years, he has been working on the development of spectrally tunable LED lighting arrays, which can be used as an alternative to prescription drugs for the treatment of a number of neurological and psychiatric conditions in both elderly and childhood populations. Recently, he has established two new business ventures which will build on the knowledge and insights developed by NeuroSense and apply them to the development of immersive experiences for education, medical, health, and wellness applications.

He is also a serial entrepreneur, having founded or co-founded and managed 6 technology start-up companies over the past 17 years in a number of life science areas. For several years he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Utah.

Doug has over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical drug design and discovery, as well as research project management and implementation, which is divided between academia and the pharmaceutical industry. He has received training in medical sciences and neuroscience, theoretical and applied biotechnology, integrative neuroscience, and rainforest ethnobotany. He is the author of over 20 publications in scientific journals and books in the areas of drug design, drug discovery, neuro-biochemistry, and marine biochemistry. He has also written over 30 technology articles in the popular press.

Doug was an NIH postdoctoral research fellow in the Neuroscience Program at the University of Utah. He holds a PhD (Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University), an MPhil (Pathology, Columbia), an MS (Psychobiology, Univ. of Florida, and a BA (Biology, Kalamazoo College). He also held pharmaceutical research positions at The Upjohn Company, CIBA-Geigy, and Syntex Pharmaceuticals.

In other ventures, Doug is also the Creative Director of DaVinci’s Workshop Inc., a technology development, product design, and prototyping studio. He is responsible for identifying market opportunities and managing the research and commercial development of new products and applications.

Doug is a member of the Research and Science Advisory Panels of the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society), is a Founding Member of the World Experience Organization, and also serves on the Science Advisory Board of the LESA Center at RPI (Lighting Enabled Systems and Applications).

Eric Bretschneider received a Bachelor of Science Engineering degree in Chemical Engineering in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1997.  He has over 30 years of industrial experience at all levels of LED manufacturing technology, ranging from MOCVD process and semiconductor structure development, chip design and fabrication, package design and fabrication, phosphor conversion, thermal management, and optical design, through to fixture/luminaire design.

In 2006, he joined the IES Test Procedures Committee (Illuminating Engineering Society) and since that time has helped develop test and measurement standards related to LEDs and LED lighting products.  He currently chairs the subcommittee for Life and Projection inside the Test Procedures Committee and is also a member of the Color Committee, the Photobiology Committee, and the Light Sources Committee.  He is a founding member of the IES Science Advisory Panel.  Eric is also a member of the CIE, Optica, SPIE, SID, and the Materials Research Society.

Eric is also a noted expert on IP matters related to LEDs and Lighting technology and has served as an expert witness is scores of matters in US District Courts, before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the ITC, in addition to matters before courts in Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America.

Mike has been President and CTO of LightLab International Allentown, LLC since the lab began doing business in 2015. Previously, he was the President of Luminaire Testing Laboratory, Inc. (LTL) for 12 years. Following the acquisition of LTL by Underwriters Laboratories in 2010, he was principal engineer (PDE) for lighting performance testing with UL for three years. During his nearly 30 years in the lighting industry, he has presented multiple papers, seminars, and presentations on the topic of light measurement and standards development.

Mike continues to be heavily involved in standards development within the lighting measurement community. He is a Past President of the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) and is currently a board member of the Council for Optical Radiation Measurement (CORM).  He is a past chair of the IES Testing Procedures Committee (TPC), and now serves as the Chair of the IES Lighting Science Advisory Panel and Chair of the IES Standards Committee. He is also an active member of several working groups under the IES TPC including the working group on TLA (flicker) measurements, the Ultraviolet Measurement working group, and the working group for application-related standards for luminaire measurement. He is also a member of the Ethics Committee, the Skyglow Calculations Committee, and the Nomenclature Committee of the IES.

LightLab International Allentown, LLC – www.lightlaballentown.com

Dr. Robert F. Karlicek, Jr. is a professor of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications (LESA) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  Prior RPI, he spent over 30 years in industrial research and R&D management positions related to optoelectronics, telecommunications and lighting system development with corporations including AT&T Bell Labs and General Electric. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh and has over 60 peer reviewed technical papers and 50 U.S. patents.

Center for Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications (LESA) – https://lesa.rpi.edu

Called to the BC Bar in 1996, Wallace has practiced law extensively, providing advice, planning, implementation, management, and due diligence to clients in technology, intellectual property, corporate commercial, business, finance, and litigation. With a varied background which includes software engineering, human biology, bio mechanics, and with experience in the optoelectronics industry, Wallace is the co-inventor on issued US patents and is currently engaged as a founder and director of SunTracker Technologies Ltd.

Wallace was previously engaged in-house including as General Counsel for TIR Systems Ltd., responsible for the concurrent prosecution and management of over 170 US and foreign patents and applications, and as Senior IP Counsel for Philips Intellectual Property and Standards headquartered out of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. In 2011 Wallace left as in-house counsel to start his own practice focusing on the unique needs of start-up companies and small business.