Donald Keck
American physicist
Donald B. Keck (born January 2, 1941) is an American research physicist and engineer most noted for his involvement in developing low-loss optical fiber. Keck grew up in Lansing, Michigan and attended Michigan State University, after which he joined Corning Incorporated’s research department. As a senior research scientist for Corning, Keck, along with Robert D. Maurer and Peter C. Schultz, designed the first optical fiber with optical losses low enough for wide use in telecommunications.
Keck spent his professional career at Corning, Inc., where he eventually held the position of Vice President and Technology Director of Optical Physics, during which time he guided the company into the field of photonics. For his work with optical fiber, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993 and received the prestigious National Medal of Technology in 2000.
Early life
Keck was born and raised in Lansing, Michigan. He entered Michigan State University in 1958 with the intention of becoming an electrical engineer. During his undergraduate years, he was persuaded by his father to switch disciplines and study physics. As a result, he received his B.S. in physics in 1962 and his M.S. in physics in 1964, both from Michigan State. He subsequently continued his studies, writing his doctorate thesis on infrared spectroscopy, and ultimately received his Ph.D. in physics from Michigan State in 1967.
“Donald Keck” enters the record as american physicist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Donald, Keck and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5294630. VIAF identifies the subject as 23752036. The Library of Congress control number is n91075247. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1993, 2000 and 1958.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donald Keck” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.