OSA Fellow Tatsuo Izawa earned his BSc and PhD from the University of Tokyo. In 1970, when he finished his PhD, he joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), where he would become President and CEO in 1998. In 2007, he transitioned into academia and became the Executive Vice President of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. For his research, he received numerous awards, including the 1980 SPIE Achievement Award, the 1982 Science and Technology Minister Prize and Imperial Invention Award, the 1998 Purple Ribbon Medal, and the 2001 John Tyndall Award from OSA and IEEE.