Necrology

Brandon Christopher Collings '94

Mar. 19, 1972-May. 15, 2023

Brandon Christopher Collings ’94 died on May 15, 2023, in Red Bank, N.J. Born in Bethesda, Md., on March 19, 1972, he grew up in Gambier, Ohio, and came to Hamilton from Mt. Vernon [Ohio] High School. Sometime later, his family moved to Media, Pa. On the Hill, Brandon was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity and majored in physics and mathematics. He also played on the baseball and soccer teams.

It was his achievement in physics that really defined his time at Hamilton. Although his academic accomplishments would lead to his induction into Phi Beta Kappa, Brandon also undertook original research using the College’s recently acquired laser to understand how a rare earth mineral interacted with light at different wavelengths. 

His findings came to the attention of the American Physical Society (APS), which invited him to be one of five finalists to present papers. In due course, he was informed that he had won the Society’s Apker Award, given in recognition of “outstanding achievement in physics by undergraduate students and thereby provides encouragement to young physicists who have demonstrated great potential for future scientific accomplishment.” 

In April of his senior year, Brandon formally presented his research at a joint meeting of the APS and the American Association of Physics Teachers. His paper was subsequently accepted for publication. 

Brandon’s broader academic accomplishments were further recognized by several awards in addition to his membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He was admitted to Sigma Xi, an international fraternity for scientists and engineers that promotes scientific research and public engagement. The College honored him with the Tertius D. Southworth Prize in Physics, awarded to a senior who excelled in that field. He also received the Elihu Root Fellowship in Science, presented to “members of the senior class who have shown high achievement and special aptitude for research in one or more of the departments of science and who plan to pursue graduate study in science." Brandon graduated with honors in physics.

Brandon’s time on the Hill was not confined to the physics lab. He was on the soccer team all four years, playing defense, and was goalie for his senior year. He also played intramural soccer, and was an outfielder for the baseball team for two years. He also joined the intramural team for ice hockey, a sport that would loom large in his later life.

A major part of his social life on campus was his coming to know Teri Anne Nugent ’95. Her field was psychobiology and she graduated with honors. They met when he was a sophomore and she was in her first year, began dating in 1993, and were engaged in 1997. Married on Aug. 1, 1998, in Rochester, N.Y., they had two daughters and a son.

From Hamilton, Brandon went to Princeton University. His concentration was electrical engineering, and, as his research developed, he did much of it at Bell Labs in Holmdel, N.J. He earned a Master of Science in 1996 and completed his Ph.D. in January 1999. The title of his dissertation was “Passive mode locking of low gain soliton lasers with a saturable Bragg reflector.” Meanwhile, Teri pursued a master’s degree in occupational therapy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She had a career as an elementary school-based occupational therapist, and they made their home in Middletown, N.J., near Holmdel.

Brandon’s career in optical communications at Bell Labs began immediately following the completion of his doctorate as a member of the technical staff. In the fall of 2000, he became a consulting engineer at Internet Photonics of Shrewsbury, N.J., and in 2004, he moved on to the Ciena Corp., also in Shrewsbury, where he became a consulting engineer in optical systems engineering. 

In 2006, he went to work for JDSU, which designed and manufactured products for optical communications networks and related applications, as director of the Optical Networks Research Laboratory. In 2009, he was promoted to chief technology officer in the commercial and consumer optical products unit. 

When, in 2015, the corporation was split in two, Brandon continued his work with the part that was named Lumentum Holdings. It manufactured optical and photonic components for optical networks and laser applications, and he focused on developing technologies that would increase the speed, capacity, and reliability of networks powering the internet, but also advanced three-dimensional sensing that would lead to innovations in the automobile industry.

Though Lumentum’s base of operations came to be located near San Francisco, Brandon and his family continued to reside in New Jersey. Thanks to the growth of computer-related technologies, he was able to work remotely for much of the time, with regular trips to the West Coast.

Brandon’s days were filled with work-related activity, but his family was decidedly important to him. While he told an interviewer that he did not have much time for reading, he did make time to read to his children. He also played intramural hockey while at Princeton, joined a men’s league, and played for 25 years.

He also formed a baseball team of fellow engineers, some of whom were born abroad and had never played the game, to play in a league organized by Lucent Technologies. He coached his children and their friends in the fundamentals of baseball, softball, and soccer. 

Brandon also liked to ski, both on snow and on water. With his family and friends, he went hiking, river-rafting, and camping, and explored national parks. 

For all of the complexities and unique scientific structures of his field, Brandon reportedly had the gift of being able to explain them in everyday language and with extraordinary clarity. As a reporter would recall: “Who else could explain the intricacies of a colorless, directionless, contentionless, flexible, reconfigurable optical add-on multiplexer,” known in the business as a “ROADM”? It seems logical to suggest that his skill in this area was aided by his time on the Hill.

Brandon C. Collings is survived by his wife and three children.

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