Stephen D. Fantone

Stephen D. Fantone is an American businessman and optical engineer. A graduate of the University of Rochester, he founded the instrumentation firm Optikos.^[1] He is a fellow of SPIE and of Optica and served as the latter organization's president in 2020.^[2][3] Optica renamed its award for distinguished service in his honor in 2013, and award of which he was a recipient in 2007.^[4]

Early life and education

Raised in West Hartford, Connecticut, Fantone entered MIT as a 16 year old, "overloading" on courses and graduating a year early at an age of 19. He spent a fourth year at MIT taking advanced courses in electrical engineering.

Fantone completed his graduate work at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, where he did his Ph.D. work under the supervision of Duncan Moore and secured a Hertz Fellowship.^[5]

Career

In the late 1990s, Fantone consulted on the lensing system for Fisher-Price's revised View-Master toy.^[6]

From 2012 through 2020, Fantone chaired the board of directors of the Pioneer Institute, a free-market think tank in Massachusetts.^[7] Fantone is also president of the Partnership for Massachusetts' Future, an advocacy group of business organizations and entrepreneurs founded in response to Raise Up Massachusetts, a pro-labor advocacy coalition.^[8]