A noted scientist and member of the US National Academy of Engineering, Personick, of  Bedminster, spent 28 years as an individual researcher and as a research manager at Bell Laboratories, TRW, and Bell Communications Research (now Telcordia Technologies). His research interests focused on communications technology and applications.

In recognition of his work, Personick was elected in 1983 a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) (1983), a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (1988), and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1992). He received a prestigious IEEE/OSA John Tyndall Award, in 2000, for pioneering research in optical receiver design, systems engineering, and optical time domain reflectometry, and for leadership in education and the promotion of fiber optics. 

Since 2003, Personick has been an independent consultant to the telecommunications industry. He was a member of the board of directors of Optical Communications Products, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCPI) from its inception as a public company in 2000 until its acquisition by Oplink Inc. in 2007. He has served as a member and/or chair of numerous US government-sponsored committees and advisory councils.

Earlier, in September 1998, he joined Drexel University as the first E. Warren Colehower Endowed Chair Professor, and as the first director of Drexel's Center for Telecommunications and Information Networking.

The Ying Wu Endowed chair is supported by a gift of $1.5 million from Ying Wu, founder of a highly successful telecommunications firm, who earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Newark College of Engineering at NJIT in 1988.