NEXT Lighting Corp., a leading developer of LED-based linear lighting products, has appointed Steve Paolini as Chief Technology Officer. Paolini will be responsible for overseeing NEXT’s strategic direction and intellectual property portfolio.

Paolini comes to NEXT Lighting with an impressive LED and solid-state lighting industry background. Paolini’s career in SSL began when he joined Hewlett Packard's Optoelectronics Division in 1981. There he held a variety of engineering and management positions in California, Japan, and Malaysia. Later he joined Lumileds and held management positions in Intellectual Property, Business Development, and Product Development. In 2007, Paolini co-founded Telelumen, to develop novel technology to record and play back light. Most recently, Paolini was CTO of Lunera Lighting, an SSL commercial fixture company.

Paolini is active in the US Department of Energy’s SSL program and a frequent speaker at industry conferences on a variety of topics relating to solid-state lighting. Paolini will speak at Semicon West this week in San Francisco on the future of SSL and be part of an expert panel at the forthcoming DOE SSL Market Introduction Workshop in Pittsburgh on July 17.