American scientist and engineer Carver Mead currently holds the position of Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), having taught there for over 40 years. He taught Deborah Chung, the first female engineering graduate of Caltech, and advised the first female electrical engineering student at Caltech, Louise Kirkbride. His contributions as a teacher include the classic textbook Introduction to VLSI Systems (1980), which he co-authored with Lynn Conway.

A pioneer of modern microelectronics, Carver has made contributions to the development and design of semiconductors, digital chips, and silicon compilers, technologies which form the foundations of modern verylarge-scale integration chip design. In the 1980s, he focused on electronic modeling of human neurology and biology, creating neuromorphic electronic systems.

Carver has been involved in the founding of more than 20 companies. Most recently, he has called for the reconceptualization of modern physics, revisiting the theoretical debates of Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and others in light of later experiments and developments in instrumentation. He has developed an approach he calls Collective Electrodynamics, in which electromagnetic effects, including quantized energy transfer, are derived from the interactions of the wavefunctions of electrons behaving collectively. In this formulation, the photon is a non-entity, and Max Plancks energyfrequency relationship comes from the interactions of electron eigenstates. The approach is related to [SNS member] John Cramers transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics, to the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, and to Gilbert N. Lewiss early description of electromagnetic energy exchange at zero interval in spacetime.

This reconceptualization makes predictions that differ from general relativity. For instance, gravitational waves should have a different polarization under G4v, the name given to this new theory of gravity. Moreover, this difference in polarization can be detected by advanced LIGO.

Carver holds BS (1956), MS (1957), and PhD (1960) degrees from Caltech; a DSchc from the University of Lund (Sweden); and a Dhc from the University of Southern California.