Οur Invited Speakers, based in Europe, will also offer insights on relevant technology developments.
Chris Roeloffzen
Chris G. H. Roeloffzen received the M.Sc. degree in applied physics from the University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands, in 1998 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 2002. He is now a Chief Scientific Officer of LioniX International and has authored or co-authored 40 refereed journal publications and more than 100 conference papers and delivered 13 invited talks in various international conferences.
Antonio Teixeira
Antonio Teixeira obtained a Ph.D., partly developed at the University of Rochester, USA, from the University of Aveiro, Portugal, in 1999. He holds an Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, USA, and a post-graduate degree in Quality Management in Higher Education. He holds eleven patents and has published more than 400 papers. He has supervised more than seventy MSc and fifteen Ph.D. students and has participated in more than thirty-five national and international projects.
Dan Marom
Dan M. Marom is a Full Professor in the Institute of Applied Physics at Hebrew University, Israel, heading the Photonic Devices Group. His 20+ year research career in optical communications started during his MSc degree, where he investigated free-space, polarization rotation-based bypass-exchange (2×2) space switches, continued through his PhD degree where he investigate ultrafast optics and parametric wave-mixing for communication applications, followed by five years at Bell Laboratories, then part of Lucent Technologies, where he developed and demonstrated the first wavelength-selective switch for routing WDM channels in optical networks. He is now pursuing his research interests in realizing novel photonic devices and sub-systems for switching and manipulating optical signals, in guided-wave and free-space optics solutions using light modulating devices, nonlinear optics, and compound materials.
Paraskevas Bakopoulos
Paraskevas Bakopoulos received his Diploma and Ph.D degrees from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. He is currently a Director at Photonic Systems in NVIDIA. His research interests focus on optical interconnects and optical switching in data center networks. He has authored or co-authored more than 110 peer-re-viewed articles and conference papers and holds 2 patents. He is actively involved in several European projects and has participated in Technical Program Committees of photonics-related events.
Ernesto Ciaramella
Ernesto Ciaramella is Full Professor in Telecommunications at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, since 2014. He joined Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, as Associate Professor in 2002. His research interests include various areas of optical communications (components, systems, networks). His main research contributions are related to devices for the regeneration of the optical signal, design of WDM systems for transport networks and access, and free-space optical systems (optical wireless). He is author or co-author of about 250 publications and holds 25 international patents.
Ivan Cano
Ivan Cano received his Master and PhD from Politecnico di Torino and since 2017 has worked as research engineer in Huawei, where he carries out research on high-speed optical access networks. He has participated in several EU projects related to access networks and has contributed to more than 80 journal and conference publications. He has expertise in research, IT, and project management and holds multiple industry certifications.
Massimo Tornatore
Massimo Tornatore (FIEEE) is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Electronics, Information, and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano. His research interests include performance evaluation, optimization and design of communication networks (with an emphasis on the application of optical networking technologies), network virtualization, network reliability, and machine learning application for network management. In these areas, he co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed conference and journal papers (with 21 best paper awards), 2 books, and 3 patents.
Jochen Maes
Jochen Maes heads the Fixed Networks research at Nokia Bell Labs, where he continuously shifts the boundaries of access since 2006. His current focus is on unleashing untapped potential in Passive Optical Networks. He holds a PhD in Science, is Bell Labs Fellow and IEEE Fellow.
Francesco Matera
Francesco Matera received the Degree in Electronics Engineering from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1985 (110 cum laude). Since 1986, he has been Researcher at FUB where he is expert on optical fibres, optical systems, optical networks, nonlinear effects and recently on NGN, QoS and 5G. He was Adjunct Professor at Electronic Engineering Faculty of Universities of Bari and Cassino. He is Author of about 285 international publications and he is also one of the Authors of the book: “Nonlinear Optical Communication Networks” Wiley 1996. Since 2018 he is one of the two members of the FUB Technical/Scientific Audit. He is one of two members of the Scientific and Technical Audit of Fondazione Ugo Bordoni.
Katharine Schmidtke
Katharine E. Schmidtke received a B.Sc. Degree in physics and mathematics from Keele University, UK, in 1989 and Ph.D in laser physics and non-linear optics from the University of Southampton in 1993. She went on to do post-doctoral research at Stanford University, CA, USA. She has 25-year career in the optical communications industry including roles at Finisar, JDS Uniphase and New Focus. For the past 9 years she has worked at Facebook where she has driven the technology strategy for data center optical interconnects. She is currently co-founder of Eribel Systems and Adjunct Professor at the UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Schmidtke has been an invited speaker and served on committees for numerous international conferences, including Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) European Conference on Communications (ECOC) and the Optical Interconnects Conference.
Nick Parsons
Nick Parsons is currently CTO Communications at HUBER+SUHNER, a global provider of connectivity solutions. Previously, he served as CTO & VP Engineering at the Cambridge start-up Polatis, where he brought their high performance optical circuit switch portfolio to market. Prior roles include senior technical positions at BAE Systems and GEC-Marconi, focusing on advanced integrated optical technologies for communications, signal processing and sensing. A graduate of Southampton University, he has contributed to over 100 papers and patents in photonics systems and devices. He is a member of IET and Optica, presently serving as chair of the Optical Communications and Photonics expert working group for the UK Telecoms Innovation Network and is a past chair of Optica NETWORKS and TPC member of ECOC.
Giorgio Maria Tosi Beleffi
Giorgio Maria Tosi Beleffi has been with the Ministry of Economic Development since 2006. In the past he was a Researcher at Fondazione Ugo Bordoni. MBA student. PhD in 2006 in Telecommunications and Microelectronics Engineering, has been General Chairman of the IEEE ICTON conference in 2007. Elected Senior Member of IEEE in 2010, got the Global Telecom Business Innovation Award in 2011 and the Best Paper Award at the ONDM 2011 International Conference both within the FP7 SARDANA Project.
Liam Barry
Liam Barry received his BE / MEngSc degrees from University College Dublin before working on early wavelength and time division multiplexed network implementations in France Telecom’s Research Laboratories (now Orange Labs). As a result of this research he obtained his PhD Degree from the University of Rennes (France). He subsequently worked in the Applied Optics Centre at Auckland University before establishing a photonics communications laboratory in Dublin City University in 1998. He served as co-chair for ECOC 2019 in Dublin and as a board member for the Irish Research Council (ministerial appointment) from 2019 to 2024.
Hideki Nishizawa
Hideki Nishizawa received B.E. and M.E. degrees in physics from Chiba University, Chiba, Japan, in 1994 and 1996, respectively. In 1996, he joined NTT Laboratories, Japan, where he has been engaged in research on open and disaggregated optical systems.