Talking with distinguished professors, industry leaders and early-stage professionals
Speakers will share interesting and meaningful insights about their research, work, and life with students and young professionals. We hope that these sharing sessions will give the audience some inspiration and encouragement in their early research career. Each speaker will deliver a 10-15 min presentation (see their titles below) followed by a 5-min Q&A. Students and young professionals can directly ask the leaders their interested questions.
Meeting Room: The Redience 3, 2F（2楼，悦府3）
Time: 13:30-16:00, 3, November, 2024
Organizers:
Xuwei Xue, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Bin Chen, Hefei University of Technology, China
Haoshuo Chen, Nokia Bell Labs, USA
Title: Don't be afraid to propose "stupid" ideas
Speaker: Dr. Di Che, Nokia Bell Labs, USA
Biography: Di Che received the B.E. degree from University of Science and Technology of China in 2012, and the Ph.D. degree from The University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2017. He joined Nokia Bell Labs (New Jersey, USA) as an optical fiber communication researcher in 2018. He has authored over 150 publications and has been an invited speaker in multiple international conferences including OFC and ECOC. He is the recipient of Tingye Li Innovation Prize (OPTICA) in 2020 and Marconi Society Paul Baran Young Scholar (The Marconi Society) in 2018. His research mainly focuses on the optical transmission system including novel digital optical subsystems, advanced modulation and multiplexing, digital signal processing and datacenter interconnects.
Title: Witnessing the inspiring journey of optical communications
Speaker: Dr. Xiang Liu, Huawei Technology, China
Biography: Xiang Liu is Chief Scientist of Optical Standards at Huawei Technologies. He has been actively contributing to international standards in ITU-T SG15, IEEE 802.3, ETSI ISG-F5G, BBF and OIF. He had been the Vice President for Optical Transport and Access at Futurewei Technologies. He received the Ph.D. degree in applied physics from Cornell University in 2000. He has authored/co-authored more than 350 journal and conference papers and holds over 100 patents. He is the author of a technical book entitled “Optical Communications in the 5G Era”. He has served as a Technical Program Co-Chair of OFC 2016 and a General Co-Chair of OFC 2018. He is a Fellow of IEEE and OSA.
Title: Research in Academia and Industry: Differences and Similarities
Speaker: Dr. Chongjin Xie, PhotonicX AI, Singapore
Biography: Chongjin Xie received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications, in 1996 and 1999, respectively. He did his postdoctoral research at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden from 1999 to 2001. He joined Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies in New Jersey, USA in 2001, doing research on optical communication systems and networks. He worked at Alibaba Infrastructure Service, Alibaba Group from 2014 to 2024 as a senior director and chief communication scientist, leading an optical networking research, planning, design and testing team to develop and implement datacenter optical interconnects and networking technologies and products in support of Alibaba online platform and cloud services. He founded PhotonicX AI in September 2024, a startup focusing on AI optical interconnects and served as CEO of the company. Dr. Xie has published one book, 5 book chapters and over 250 journal and conference papers, and served as an associate editor of Journal of Lightwave Technologies from 2013 to 2019, OFC program chair and general chair in 2019 and 2021, respectively. He is a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of Optica.
Title: Academic contribution from an industrial perspective, and vice versa, too
Speaker: Dr. Jim Zou, Adtran Networks, Germany
Biography: Jim Zou joined ADVA Optical Networking (now Adtran Networks), Germany, in 2016, currently leading emerging initiatives within Global Business Development. He is part of the Product Solution team for new technology introduction. He actively participates in the international SDOs like O-RAN Alliance, ITU-T SG15, CableLabs, OIF, Quantum Communication Networks Task Force at TSAC Singapore, Smart Tunable MSA, and other industrial MSAs. He received the PhD degree from Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, in 2015. He is currently serving on the OFC technical program as Subcommittee Chair, and also an Associate Editor for IEEE/Optica Journal of Optical Communications and Networking. He has co- and authored more than 65 scientific papers, and holds several international patents which lead to commercial products.
Title: Some Thoughts on Conducting Interdisciplinary Research
Speaker: Prof. Yanni Ou, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Biography: Yanni Ou received the PhD degree from University of Bristol, UK, in 2016, and has become a senior research associate since then. Since 2018, she joined Nokia Bell Labs at Stuttgart, Germany, as a researcher with the Fixed Networks Group. In September 2021, she has become a professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China. Her research interests focus on the intelligent optical communication systems and networks, network convergence, as well as quantum information and networking. She has published in high quality journals and conferences, holding international patents that lead to commercialization, and has contributed in ITU-T/ETSI/CCSA standarlizations. She has been involved in multiple UK/EU/Germany funded projects, and has also served as the grant reviewer for EPSRC UK, and TPC member of OFC/OECC/ACP/PEIRS.
Title: Bridging the gap: from optical networking to computer systems
Speaker: Dr. Zhizhen Zhong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Biography: Zhizhen Zhong is a postdoctoral associate at MIT. His research focuses on the interdisciplinary area between optical networking and distributed computer systems. He regularly served on the program committees of top-tier conferences like ACM SIGCOMM and NSDI. Before joining MIT, Zhizhen was a researcher at the Meta network infrastructure team. Zhizhen received his PhD and bachelor’s degrees all from Tsinghua University, in 2019 and 2014, respectively. During his PhD, Zhizhen was a visiting PhD student at UC Davis.
Title: How to choose research topics
Speaker: Prof. Lilin Yi, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Biography: Lilin Yi, distinguished professor, vice director of the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Network of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His main research topics include intelligent optical communication systems and intelligent fiber laser systems. Dr. Lilin Yi is the author or co-author of more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals and prestigious conferences. He has achieved the awards of "National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China" and “Young scholars of the Yangtze River in China”. He serves as the TPC member of OFC/OECC/CLEO-PR/ACP and TPC track/workshop/symposium co-chairs of OFC/ECOC/OECC/CLEO-PR/ACP.
Title: PhD Journey: Research, Learning, and Growth
Speaker: Ms. Mengfan Fu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Biography: Mengfan Fu received her B.E. degree in Information Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Shanghai, China, in 2019. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Information and Communication Engineering at SJTU. Her research interests include digital coherent technologies in high-capacity long-haul systems and low-cost systems for data center interconnect. She received the Grand Prize for the Corning Outstanding Student Paper Competition at the 2020 OFC and the SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship in 2023.
