Jean Pierre von der Weid (M'02–SM'15) was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1948. He received the Ph.D. degree in physics, in 1976. Since 1983, he has been with fiber optics. Since 1990, he has been a Professor with the Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he led the Optoelectronics and Instrumentation Group, Center for Telecommunications Studies. He developed the interferometric technique for polarization mode dispersion measurements in optical fibers as well as methods for evaluating and mitigating PMD impairments in high-bit-rate transmissions. His present areas of interest include PON monitoring and quantum cryptography.