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IEEE Women in Photonics travel grant

Wenting Yi's reflections on winning the IEEE Travel Grant

Wenting Yi, a TRANSNET PhD researcher, was a recipient of the 2022 IEEE Women in Photonics Travel Grant. Here, we reflect on Wenting's experiences on being awarded the grant and the opportunities that it offered.

The IEEE Women in Photonics initiative, with the support of the IEEE Photonics Society, established this travel grants program to encourage early career participation from women members at the annual IEEE Summer Topicals Conference.

The IEEE Photonics Society honoured a total of 6 women researchers with $2,500 USD grants each. The grant funds are intended to be used for travel, lodging expenses and registration to the conference.

Speaking on her thoughts on being awarded the travel grant, Wenting commented:

"I’m very honored to receive the IEEE Women in Photonics Travel Grant to attend the IEEE Summer Topicals Meeting Series (IEEE SUM) this year. I can’t imagine a better experience of talking and connecting with so many senior members in the community over the drinks and delicious Mexican food, and by the wonderful ocean view of course! It’s truly been an unforgettable memory and I look forward to attend SUM next year!"

This year, the IEEE Summer Topical Meeting Series took place at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico from 11 to 13 July 2022. The conference serves as an international forum to facilitate information exchange between various technical communities using or affected by rapidly growing areas of technology or “Hot Topics” related to the general field of Photonics. Attending this conference provided the grantees an opportunity to learn about emerging topics in the field of photonics and to interact with the research and technology leaders.

To learn more about the IEEE Women in Photonics initiative, please visit this page here. Further information on the travel grant can be accessed here.

Wenting Yi's biographywenting yi profile pic ong web

Wenting Yi received a BEng degree in Electronic Information Engineering from Nanjing Forestry University, China, in 2017. The following September, she joined UCL to pursue an MSc in Wireless and Optical Communications. For her thesis, she worked with Prof Robert Killey on low-complexity heterodyne optical coherent transceivers.

In September 2018, Wenting joined the Optical Networks Group as a PhD candidate with funding from Huawei Technologies. Under the supervision of Prof Robert Killey and Prof Polina Bayvel, she is currently working on coherent and direct detection optical transceivers for long-haul and short-reach links, focusing on advanced signal formats and digital signal processing. Her research interests include:

  • Coherent and direct detection optical receivers
  • Advanced optical signal formats
  • Optical signal propagation in dispersive nonlinear fibres
  • Long- and ultra-long-haul links, and short reach, metro, access and data-centre links
  • Digital signal processing algorithms, e.g. Kramers-Kronig scheme, digital back propagation, constellation shaping, machine learning