Dr. Payne collaborates with SGR’s patent attorneys and agents in pursuing patent protection for our various clients and working on other patent-related projects in our growing patent practice.

Dr. Payne has deep experience in various technical fields at the intersection of electrical engineering and physics. He ran his own technology consulting company focusing on solar and semiconductor design and has also served as a Senior Scientist at a major solar cell company. Over his career, Dr. Payne has been involved with three start-up companies which developed new products in displays, optical communications, solar energy, and compound semiconductor growth techniques. Dr. Payne previously worked as Research and Development Engineer at Georgia Tech and has worked at national labs in both the U.S. and Japan. Since joining SGR, he has worked on a variety of matters, and become an expert in applications of machine learning. He has authored more than 30 technical publications on solar cells and semiconductor topics and is himself a co-inventor on 5 U.S. patents.

He has worked on a variety of matters for clients including patent applications in medical devices, solar cells, clothing, robots, applications of machine learning, data analytics, image processing, computer security, software applications, and cryptography.

Dr. Payne earned his undergraduate degree in Applied Physics from Yale University summa cum laude, his Master’s degree in Microelectronic Engineering and Semiconductor Physics from the University of Cambridge, another Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton. He also received a Fulbright Grant to study Physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.