TRANSNET Principal Investigator
BSc(Eng), PhD, CBE, FRS, FREng, FIEEE, FOSA, FInstP, HonFIET
Professor Polina Bayvel is the Head of the Optical Networks Group at UCL which she also set up in 1994. Her research interests are in the area of optical communications and include wavelength-routed optical networks, high-speed optical transmission, and the study and mitigation of fibre nonlinearities. She was one of the first to show the feasibility of using the wavelength domain for routing in optical networks, and designed wavelength-selective devices needed for their characterisation and implementation. More recently she has focused on the study of capacity limits in nonlinear optical networks and optical networks for the cloud. She has authored or co-authored more than 350 refereed journal and conference papers.
Polina Bayvel received her BSc (Eng) and PhD degrees in Electronic & Electrical Engineering from University of London, UK, in 1986 and 1990, respectively. In 1990, she was with the Fiber Optics Laboratory, General Physics Institute, Moscow (formerly USSR, now Russian Academy of Sciences), under the Royal Society Postdoctoral Exchange Fellowship. She was a Principal Systems Engineer with STC Submarine Systems Ltd, London, UK, and Nortel Networks (Harlow, UK, and Ottawa, ON, Canada), where she was involved in the design and planning of optical fibre transmission networks. During 1994-2004, she held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at University College London (UCL), and in 2002, she was appointed to a Chair in Optical Communications and Networks.
Professor Bayvel is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), Optical Society of America (FOSA), Institute of Electronic & Electrical Engineers (FIEEE), the UK Institute of Physics (IoP), and the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET). She was the recipient of the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2007-2012), 2013 IEEE Photonics Society Engineering Achievement Award, 2014 Royal Society Clifford Patterson Prize Lecture and Medal and in 2015 together with 5 members of her group, received the Royal Academy of Engineering Colin Campbell Mitchell Award for 'pioneering contributions to optical communications technology'. She was the PI of the UK EPSRC Programme Grant UNLOC (2012-2018), focused on unlocking - and maximising - the capacity of optical communications., and now leads the TRANSNET Programme Grant (2018-2024).
She was awarded CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2017 New Year's Honours List for services to engineering.
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TRANSNET Co-Investigator
Robert Killey received his B.Eng. degree in Electronic and Communications Engineering from the University of Bristol, U.K., in 1992 and the M.Sc. degree in Microwaves and Optoelectronics from UCL, U.K., in 1994.
He received the D.Phil. degree from the University of Oxford, U.K., in 1998. His doctoral work was on InGaAsP Fabry–Perot optical modulators and their applications in soliton communications.
He has been a member of the academic staff at UCL since 2000 and is currently a co-investigator on the EPSRC TRANSNET project; a multidisciplinary research programme investigating intelligent resource allocation in dynamic optical networks
Prof Killey is an Associate Editor of the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology and the IEEE Photonics journal, and has served on the Technical Programme Committees of OFC and ECOC. He was a recipient of the 2015 Royal Academy of Engineering 2015 Colin Campbell Award, and is a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Current research interests:
- Modelling and experimental investigations of the effects of fibre nonlinearity on high bit-rate WDM data transmission
- Simplified direct detection and coherent optical transceivers and the applications of digital signal processing for transmission impairment mitigation in high capacity optical communication systems
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TRANSNET Co-Investigator
Zhixin Liu received the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, in 2012. Upon Ph.D. graduation, he received the Hong Kong Creative Fund and cofounded a start-up company. In 2013, he joined the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton in the UK and became a Senior Research Fellow in 2015.
In 2016, he joined the Optical Networks Group at the department of electronics and electrical engineering at UCL. Prof Liu is a senior member IEEE and senior member OSA. He receives OSA Outstanding Reviewer Award in 2018.
Zhixin is currently a co-investigator on the EPSRC TRANSNET project; a multidisciplinary research programme investigating intelligent resource allocation in dynamic optical networks
Prof Zhixin Liu has published more than 70 papers in internationally-leading journals and conferences, with several high-profile papers including Nat. Comm., Invited papers in Journal of Lightwave Technology and highly prestigious post-deadline papers in top conference of the field (Optical Fiber Communication Conference, OFC, European Conference of Optical Communications, ECOC). Being knowledgeable in both software (digital signal processing) and hardware technologies (optoelectronic devices and systems), Prof Liu endeavours to overcome fundamental limitations in signal generation, processing and detection.
Research interests:
- Optical transmitters for short and medium reach optical communication systems using optical signal processing and photonic integration;
- Laser dynamics for generation of high-fidelity signals;
- Digital and analog signal processing for low latency and power-aware optical communications.
Prof Liu’s research is funded by EPSRC, Royal Society, and industry partners including Microsoft, Eblana Photonics and Huawei Inc. For more information please visitwww.zhixinliu.net
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TRANSNET Co-Investigator
Georgios Zervas is currently a Senior Lecturer in Optical and High-Performance Networks at University College London. He received his MEng degree in Electronic and Telecommunication Systems Engineering with distinction and PhD degree in optical networks from the University of Essex in 2003 and 2009 respectively. Following this, he held the positions of Research Associate and subsequently Research Fellow as a member of High-Performance Networks group at the University of Essex. He was appointed Lecturer in 2011. Following this, he held the positions of Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at University of Bristol until 2016 when he joined the Optical Networks Group at UCL. He also held the position of visiting Associate Professor at Keio University, Tokyo for 6 months.
He is the author and co-author of over 200 international peer-reviewed journals and conferences including numerous prestigious post-deadline papers at ECOC/OFC. He has also given numerous invited talks at several international conferences. He has been involved in several current and past EC and EPSRC funded projects as principal and co-investigator. He has been acting as a TPC member on international conferences and guest associate editor on IEEE JOCN. He has been involved in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Open Grid Forum (OGF) standardization fora.
George is a Co-Investigator on the TRANSNET grant since 2018.
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Alfonso Ruocco is currently a Lecturer in Optical Communications and Networks in the Department of Electrical Engineering at University College London. He received his MEng in Electronic Engineering from the Federico II University of Naples in 2011 and his PhD in Photonics Engineering from the University of Ghent/IMEC in 2016, where he explored novel high complexity integrated photonic circuits.
He was subsequently appointed as a Postdoctoral Associate within the Research Laboratory of Electronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he investigated novel CMOS-compatible integrated photonics systems for metrology and communication systems. Following this, Alfonso held the position of Research Associate and Senior Research Associate within the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge, where he investigated novel hybrid nanomaterials/CMOS-compatible photonic platforms for communication systems and ultrafast photonics.
Alfonso’s current research interests include integrated photonic systems implemented on high index contrast platforms, photonic transceivers, ultrafast and quantum photonics.