Dr. Harshil Dave is an optical scientist specializing in semiconductor laser systems, adaptive optics, and defense sensing technologies. He was previously a Research Scientist in the Optical Sciences Division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, where he led programs in free-space laser propagation and wavefront sensing for directed energy and hypersonic platforms. He was awarded the NRL Karle Fellowship to advance machine learning methods for correcting optical aberrations in propagating laser beams. His expertise spans semiconductor lasers, optical communications, atmospheric turbulence, and beam control and imaging systems. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where his research focused on coherently coupled VCSELs for optical fiber data communications, and holds a B.S. in Physics from Rutgers University.
