Dr. Lin received his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University, his master’s degree from the University of North Carolina, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton in 1992. During 1994-2004, Lin headed Sandia National Laboratories’ multimillion-dollar research and development effort in photonic crystal devices, located in Albuquerque, N.M. In 2000-2003, Lin directed a U.S. Department of Energy multi-laboratories new initiative in Nano-Structural Photonics (Nano-Photonics).
Dr. Lin  is a fellow of American Physical Society (APS), a fellow of Optical Society of America (OSA), a fellow of International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and also a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was the recipient of NOVA award from DOE Sandia National Laboratories, R&D 100 Award, Asia-American Engineer-of-the-year Award, and NYSERDA Distinguished Faculty Award.  In 2016, he was selected by IEEE Nanotechnology Council to receive the  "IEEE Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology". The award is for his pioneering contribution to the development of photonic-crystal and to the discovery of the darkest material known to science.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Award_in_Nanotechnology).