Organising Committee

Dr Wasiu Popoola (Chair), The University of Edinburgh
Dr Wasiu O. Popoola is currently a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) and Deputy Director of Learning and Teaching in the School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, U.K. He is a Fellow of  the Institute of Engineering Technology (FIET), Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has published over 120-journal articles/conference papers/patent. He co-authored the book Optical Wireless Communications: System and Channel Modelling with MATLAB (two editions). His primary research interests include optical communications, including VLC, FSO, and short reach fiber communication. Popoola is a science communicator appearing in science festivals and on ‘BBC Radio 5live Science’ programme in Oct. 2017. His publications have over 5600 citations and an h-index of 33 on Google Scholar. He was an Invited speaker at various events including the 2016 IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topicals.

Prof Tim O’Farrell (Co-chair) Sheffield University
Professor Timothy O’Farrell currently holds a Chair in Wireless Communications at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Sheffield, where he the Deputy Director of Research and Innovation. He specializes in the design of energy efficient wireless networks, direct digitisation in multiband software defined radios, and wave form design for wireless communication systems. To date, he has published over 330 papers and led 24 large research projects on these topics. Professor O’Farrell was the Academic Coordinator of the mVCE Green Radio project (2009-12); the General Chair of the 5th International Workshop on Next Generation Green Wireless Networks (Next-GWiN 2018); and director of the UK Research Strategy Community Organisation in Communications, Mobile Computing and Networking (CommNet2, 2015-19). He is a director of the mVCE (mobilevce.com); a member of the UK5G Climate and Environment Working Group (uk5g.org) and a member of the UK Government DCMS College of Experts (gov.uk/dcms).

Dr Sinan Sinanovic (Co-chair) Glasgow Caledonian University
Dr Sinan Sinanovic is a Reader at Glasgow Caledonian University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University, Houston, Texas. He has worked previously as a Research Fellow in the Institute for Digital Communications at the University of Edinburgh. While working with Halliburton Energy Services, he has developed patented acoustic telemetry receiver. He has also worked for Texas Instruments on development of ASIC testing. Dr. Sinanovic has authored about hundred publications, including six granted patents, in the fields of spatial modulation, acoustic telemetry, optical wireless, indoor positioning, anomaly detection, interference mitigation and reduction of nonlinearities in optical communications. His research has been funded by Digital Health Innovation Centre, Docomo, ESPRC and Halliburton Energy Service. He is a member of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honour society and a member of Eta Kappa Nu electrical engineering honour society. He won an honourable mention at the International Math Olympiad in 1994.

Dr Dave Laurenson (Co-chair) The University of Edinburgh
David(Dave) I. Laurenson is a Reader with the School of Engineering at The University of Edinburgh.  He obtained a BEng degree in Computer Science and Electronics in 1990, and a PhD in Electronics and Electrical Engineering in 1994, both at The University of Edinburgh. His interests lie in mobile communications at the link layer this includes measurements, analysis and modelling of channels and MAC protocols, whilst at the network layer this includes provision of mobility management and quality of service support. His research extends to practical implementation of wireless networks to other research fields, such as prediction of fire spread using wireless sensor networks, deployment of communication networks for distributed control of power distribution networks, and sensor networks for environmental monitoring and structural analysis.

Dr Athina Frantzana (Co-chair) The University of Edinburgh
Dr Athina Frantzana is a researcher working on Widening Participation in Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD research focused on gender diversity in the high performance computing (HPC) community, the causes of the lack of gender equality, the problems this brings to the community, the benefits of increasing diversity and providing evidence for the effectiveness of a range of approaches designed to improve gender diversity. Athina was a co-founding member of the Women in HPC network, and has been a member of the organising committee for various conferences and events including her recent role as the Inclusivity Training Chair at the last Supercomputing Conference (SC21).