Steve Alexander is Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer at Ciena. He has held a number of positions since joining the Company in 1994, including General Manager of Ciena's Transport & Switching and Data Networking business units, Vice President of Transport Products and Director of Lightwave Systems. From 1982 until joining Ciena, he was employed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He is an IEEE Fellow and is a recipient of the IEEE Communications Society Industrial Innovation Award. He is a member of the Board of Governors of 5G Americas and a member of the Board of Directors for the Alliance for Telecom Industry Solutions (ATIS). He has been an Associate Editor for both the IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communications & Networking (JOCN) and the Journal of Lightwave Technology (JLT) and has served as a member of the Federal Communications Commission Technological Advisory Council (TAC-4) and as a commissioner in the TechAmerica Cloud First, Cloud Fast Initiative.