Greg Blonder is an inventor, physicist, entrepreneur, and author whose work has helped shape technologies ranging from two-factor authentication to consumer electronics and telecommunications. A Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, he holds more than 100 patents and has helped bring products to market that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. He has also led research organizations at AT&T Bell Laboratories, served as a venture capital partner, and taught engineering and design at Boston University.

Today, Greg promotes voting rights and democratic reform, and writes about these efforts on Medium.

He joined AT&T in 1982, beginning with research into superconductivity and quantum phenomena in semiconductor materials. In 1987, he became head of Bell Labs' Photonics and Electronics Research Department, followed in 1991 by his appointment as director of the Materials and Technology Integration Research Laboratory. In 1992, he took on an additional role as Chief Technical Advisor for Corporate Strategy and Development, advising AT&T's board and senior management on technology and business strategy.

In 1995, Greg founded Bell Labs' Customer Expectations Research Lab to bring research closer to consumer needs. The lab combined statistical and cognitive techniques to understand human behavior and translate those insights into future products and services. It also pioneered a quantitative approach to scenario planning that was adopted by several companies. After Bell Labs became part of Lucent Technologies in 1996, Greg helped establish AT&T's Claude Shannon Labs.

During the 1990s, Greg's personal research focused on developing new consumer services and inventing new categories of electronic devices, including the AT&T Wrist Telephone. His patents span green energy, optical recording, integrated fiber-optic devices, displays, toys, computer systems, software services, and user interfaces. Among his inventions are foundational concepts behind two-factor authentication and visual passwords.

Born into a family of small-business owners, he developed an early appreciation for the challenge of turning innovative ideas into successful products and businesses. In 1998, Greg left AT&T Labs to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities through AT&T Ventures. From 2000 to 2008, he was a general partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, joining the firm as the internet bubble was deflating, and helped lead several portfolio companies through the downturn, serving as CEO or in other leadership roles. These companies included early ventures in LED lighting, LIDAR, and electronic game advertising.

Greg continues to serve as a director and advisor to private companies and occasionally writes about venture capital, green technology, and the economy. He also develops new products for selected clients. In the past five years, products he helped develop have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, with tens of millions of units shipped.

Beyond technology and entrepreneurship, Greg serves as science advisor to AmazingRibs.com, one of the internet's largest barbecue resources. He also works with competitive barbecue teams and pitmasters to improve their techniques and performance, and co-wrote a best-selling book on BBQ science.

He has lectured at Wharton and Columbia Business Schools, taught at Parsons School of Design, and served as Professor of Design and Product Engineering in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Boston University from 2015 to 2021.

Greg attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his thesis examined phase transitions in liquid crystals. In 1982, he received both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University. His doctoral research explained the physics of the normal-to-superconducting transition and the subharmonic energy gap in point-contact junctions. This work was later recognized as a 50th-anniversary milestone paper by Physical Review B.