Donald S. Crankshaw, Ph.D. is a director at Aon, specializing in intellectual property litigation. Donald has been part of the company for more than a decade and has worked on diverse projects involving semiconductor fabrication, electrical circuit design, data analysis, code comparison, software copyright, and prior art search. In the course of his work, Donald has served as an expert witness in cases involving trade secret misappropriation and online software. He has also designed and programmed numerous software tools to assist in these projects.
Donald has an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. from the University of South Carolina Honors College. He is also a professionally published science fiction and fantasy writer and a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, with stories in Nature Futures and Intergalactic Medicine Show among other venues, and he edits and publishes an online speculative fiction magazine.
Prior to joining Aon, Donald worked on superconducting circuit design and test for MIT and the University of Rochester, RF and optical engineering for MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and prior art searching for Cardinal Intellectual Properties.
Selected Publications
"DC Measurements of Macroscopic Quantum Levels in a Superconducting Qubit Structure with a Time-Ordered Meter." D. S. Crankshaw, K. Segall, D. Nakada, et al. Physical Review B 69 no. 14:144518 (2004).
"Energy Relaxation Time between Macroscopic Quantum Levels in a Superconducting Persistent Current Qubit." Y. Yu, D. Nakada, J. C. Lee, B. Singh, D. S. Crankshaw, et al. Physical Review Letters 92 no. 11:117904 (2004).
Ph.D., Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dissertation: “Measurement and On-Chip Control of a Niobium Persistent Current Qubit,” 2003.
M.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thesis:“Aligned GaAs Pillar Bonding,” 1998.
