Paul Yu was born in Hong Kong, on July 12, 1957. He received a B.S. in Physics, M.S., and Ph.D. in applied physics from Caltech, Pasadena, CA in 1979, and 1983, respectively.

In 1983, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego and had been a professor there since 1993. His research work is mainly in the area of optoelectronic semiconductor devices for digital and analog optical communications. In particular, he worked on high power waveguide photodiode, traveling wave electroabsorption waveguide modulator, mode locked laser, laser array, high power optoelectronic switches, and many other analog photonic components. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 journal papers and several book chapters in the areas of photonics. He serves in technical program committee and steering committee of several IEEE and OSA conferences and is presently the Vice President of Education Activities of IEEE Electron Devices Society. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Optical Society of America and SPIE.