Welcome to our Topic Sub-Committee Chairs and Poster Session organisers from across the industry
We are pleased to welcome a number of experts to our 2023 Committee, each focused on a particular topic area. We also welcome our Poster Session organisers for 2023. Find out more below.
Telecommunications - Mingming Tan, Research Fellow, Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies, Aston University
Dr Mingming Tan received the Ph.D. degree in electronics engineering from Aston University, UK in 2016. He works as a Research Fellow at Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AiPT), Aston University. He has published 87 journal and conference papers in the field of optical fibre communications. He is a Member of Optica. He has been a co-chair of sessions at ICTON, PIERS, and IEEE SUM since 2018, and serves as a guest editor of the journals MDPI Photonics and Applied Sciences.
Data Centres - Fotini Karinou, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research
Fotini is a Senior Researcher at Microsoft working on developing novel optical technologies for next generation cloud computing systems and networks. Before joining Microsoft, she was a Senior R&D Engineer at Huawei Technologies Ltd in the Optical & Quantum Lab, in the German Research Centre in Munich, where she worked on optical transmission systems and networks, spanning from high-capacity optical interconnects for datacom, to metro/access, and long-haul coherent systems. In Huawei, she also worked on developing quantum key distribution optical systems and subsystems and physical layer prototypes for quantum communications. She received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering, with specialization in telecommunications and information theory, and the PhD degree in optical communications focused on spectrally efficient WDM optical interconnect networks with advanced modulation formats, from the University of Patras, Greece, in 2007, and 2012, respectively. She has served as Chair and TPC member in several (OSA, IEEE) conferences in the field of optical communications and is currently serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of Lightwave Technology.
Photonic Components - Mary McCarthy, Lumentum
Dr Mary Elizabeth McCarthy (she/her) works as Design Authority for Digital Coherent Optical modules in Lumentum (previously Oclaro). Previous experience includes post-doctoral research at Aston University (UK) on optical signal processing to counteract nonlinear transmission impairments in large bandwidth, complex modulation format systems. She has worked for Ericsson in UK and Australia on design, implementation and customer compliance of long haul and metro transport platforms. She completed her PhD in digital chromatic dispersion compensation in Tyndall institute (IRL) in 2009.
Free Space Optics - Martin Lavery, Glasgow University
Further information coming soon
Photonics for RAN - Dimitra Simeonidou, Bristol University
Dimitra Simeonidou is a Full Professor at the University of Bristol, the Co-Director of the Bristol Digital Futures Institute and the Director of Smart Internet Lab. Her research is focusing on the fields of high-performance networks, programmable networks, wireless-optical convergence, 5G/6G and smart city infrastructures. She is increasingly working with Social Sciences on topics of digital transformation for society and businesses. Dimitra has been the Technical Architect and the CTO of the smart city project Bristol Is Open. She is currently leading the Bristol City/Region 5G and Open RAN pilots. She is the author and co-author of over 600 publications, numerous patents and several major contributions to standards. She has been co-founder of two spin-out companies, the latest being the University of Bristol VC funded spin-out Zeetta Networks, http://www.zeetta.com, delivering SDN solutions for enterprise and emergency networks. Dimitra is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), a Fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE) and a Royal Society Wolfson Scholar
Quantum Communications - Cathy White, BT
Cathy White is a researcher at British Telecom who is working on integrating and downstreaming quantum information technology for industrial applications. She has studied electronics, physics and quantum physics, and she worked in a variety of different technical roles in software and instrumentation before joining BT in 2011.
Poster Session Organiser - Lakshmi Rajagopal, Early Stage Researcher, BT Applied Research
I am a Marie Curie fellowship based Early-Stage Researcher, pursuing my PhD with BT and University of Birmingham on the “Application of highly precise optical clocks in a telecom network”. Telecom networks need high level of accuracy and synchronization to work effectively. Currently, this is achieved with the help of satellite-based technologies. The next generation of telecom network require precision and stability than ever before, and this is easily achieved in the lab with an optical atomic clock. The challenge is on how to bring this technology out of the lab and utilize it in our telecom infrastructure. . Another dimension of my research work involves investigating wide range of use cases and applications that can be benefitted from these highly precise clocks.
Poster Session Organiser - Anastasiia Vasylchenkova, Trust Research Fellow in Optical Networks Group, UCL
I am a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow in Optical Networks Group at University College London, running a research project on the analytical modelling of ultrawideband optical communication. I received my BSc and MSc in nuclear physics from the Kharkiv National University, Ukraine in 2014 and 2016, respectively. I received a PhD degree from Aston University, Birmingham, UK, for developing the nonlinear Fourier transform approach for optical communications. Beyond research, I am an experienced educator in STEM, educational events manager and designer, Fellow of the Higher Educational Academy. I have10 years of volunteering experience for STEM and photonics communities. I am currently a Publicity Officer of the IEEE Photonics UK and Ireland Photonics Chapter, and a Chair of the OPTICA Optical Communication Technical Group.