 Bernard Lee
Director of Technology & Innovation, SENKO Advanced Components
Bernard is currently the Director of Technology & Innovation at SENKO Advanced Components. He started his career in optical communications when he was a Senior Research Office for the European Union IST project known as DAVID in 2000. In 2003, he joined Telekom Malaysia R&D where he has held various technical and management positions there including the Head of Photonic Network Research and also Head of Innovation and Communications. Bernard then joined the parent company, Telekom Malaysia (TM) in 2010 as the Assistant General Manager at the Group Business Strategy Division. Bernard is also an Expert at the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), a Chartered Engineer (CEng) accredited by the Engineering Council of UK, a Professional Engineer (PEng) registered with the Board of Engineers Malaysia and also a BICSI Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD). |
 Yalin Li
Application Product Director, QuantumCTek Co., Ltd, Rep. of China
Yalin Li is the application product director at QuantumCTek Co., Ltd in China. He studied at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) from September 1999 to July 2008 and graduated with a PhD. After his studies, he worked at Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell from July 2008 to December 2012 as a post-doctorate fellow and an advisor engineer, where he gained research experience on communication systems. Following this, he worked at BJRZ Tech. Co from December 2012 to January 2015 as vice general manager and chief engineer where he gained experience and expertise on system design and management. Since January 2015, he has been working at QuantumCTek Co. Ltd as the director of the application product line. In recent years, he has led the testing of co-fiber systems for quantum and classical signals and contributed to the research report : “Research on the co-fiber transmission of quantum key distribution and classic optical communication systems” in CCSA ST7. He also serves as the chief editor of deliverable D2.4 Technical Report on QKDN Transport Technologies in the ITU-T Focus Group on Quantum Information Technology for Networks (FG-QIT4N). |
 Andrew Lord
Senior Manager, Optical Networks and Quantum Research, BT
Andrew joined BT in 1985 after a BA in Physics from Oxford University. He has worked on a wide range of optical network systems and technologies, including long haul subsea and terrestrial DWDM networks. He currently heads BT’s optical core and access research including quantum communications. He has published over 100 research papers. He was General Chair for the Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) 2017 in Los Angeles. He is Visiting Professor at Essex University, a Senior Member of the IEEE and Chartered Engineer and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Lightwave Technology. He won the prestigious BT Martlesham Medal in 2018. He is currently project manager for the EU Metro-Haul Project and the UK-funded AIRQKD projects.
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 James Nagel
Lead Photonic & Laser Systems Engineer, L3Harris Technologies
Dr. James Nagel is a Lead Photonic & Laser Systems Engineer at L3Harris Technologies Space and Airborne Systems, with over 15 years of experience across large and small businesses in both the commercial and aerospace industry. His primary technical expertise covers the field of lasers and optics at the component and system/application level. Specific areas include photonic devices, nonlinear optics, fiber lasers, free-space optical communications, LIDAR and remote sensing applications, as well as quantum communications. In his current role, Dr. Nagel is responsible for optical communications and networking efforts within L3Harris, leading multiple customer-funded and Internal Research & Development programs and serving as the Chief Technologist of L3Harris’ Quantum Communications Solutions group. He holds a PhD in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona. Since its establishment in 2019, James also serves as co-chair of the ITU-T Focus Group on Quantum Information Technology for Networks (FG-QIT4N).
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 Mehdi Namazi
Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Qunnect
Mehdi is the cofounder and Chief Science Officer of Qunnect Inc. He graduated with his Ph.D. in AMO Physics at SBU’s Quantum Information Processing & Technology laboratory in 2018 Mehdi joined SBU in 2012, following completion of an M.Sc. degree in nanophysics, and an undergraduate degree in Physics. During his Ph.D., Mehdi worked on several aspects of quantum communication technologies. Most notably, he realized the first unconditional room-temperature quantum memory, securely storing information and performing quantum key distribution protocols and simulating relativistic quantum particles using light-matter interactions. In 2018, Mehdi was awarded the Yale Joint Quantum Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on novel quantum opto-mechanical systems that would allow for ultra-precise measurement of fundamental constants. He served as the CEO of Qunnect during the initial years and eventually made the transition to the Chief Science Officer in 2020. Qunnect is devoted to build hardware to transform telecommunications infrastructure into scalable quantum networks. The team has successfully raised more than $1M in seed fund and $3.7M in federal grants to develop robust field deployable quantum modules for distributing entangled photons over the telecom network.
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 Ji-min Nie
Executive Vice President, CAS Quantum Network Co., Ltd
Dr. Ji-min Nie obtained his doctor's degree in particle and nuclear physics in 2002 from the University of Science and Technology of China. Dr. Ji-min Nie is currently the executive vice president and chief engineer of CAS Quantum Network Co., Ltd. Dr. Ji-min Nie’s work mainly focuses on free-space quantum communication and other emerging quantum information technology. He's devoted to promoting practical application of quantum communication satellite and ground-stations.
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 Richard Pitwon
CEO, Resolute Photonics
Dr. Richard Pitwon is the founder and CEO of Resolute Photonics and has more than 20 years transformational expertise in optical and photonic system interconnect, integration and architectures for data centre, IoT and data-communications applications. He previously led the photonics research and development groups at Xyratex and Seagate for over 12 years. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the IET (FIET) and Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP). He has generated over 54 patents, authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications including 4 international standards. He is the current chair of the IEC international standards subcommittee on fibre optic interconnecting devices and passive components (SC86B), as well as secretary of the IEC optical circuit boards standards group and principal UK expert on international standards group (IEC / BSI) for Photonic Integrated Circuits (SC86C/WG4) and embedded devices (TC91/WG6). He is also the chair of the IEEE UK and Ireland Photonics chapter, where he founded the IEEE British and Irish Conference on Optics and Photonics.
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 Eric Wille
Optical System Engineer, European Space Agency
Eric Wille works for the European Space Agency (ESA) since 2009. He is managing activities with European companies and research institutes in the fields of x-ray optics, quantum optics and laser communication. In the area of space based quantum key distribution, Eric Wille is responsible for technology developments and project implementations for commercial and governmental programmes. Before joining ESA, he obtained his PhD in experimental quantum optics at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) following studying physics at the Darmstadt University of Technology (Germany) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). His publications include more than 90 scientific and technical papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is member of several committees for conferences and of the International Astronautical Federation.
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 Felix Wissel
Deutsche Telekom, Germany
Felix Wissel holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics. He is in the engineering department of Deutsche Telekom Technik GmbH which he joined in 2014 as senior expert for network concepts and architectures. Before, he was in-house consultant at T-Systems International GmbH and as such is with DT since 2011. He participated in several international projects for ESA and EU and worked on IP-optical integration, SDN solutions and latest developments in transport technologies and security. Felix is now heavily involved in quantum cryptography and works on deploying a QKD platform for Deutsche Telekom. He is interested in mathematics, topology and network design challenges.
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Chunxu Zhao
Senior Engineer, China Unicom, Rep. of China
Chunxu Zhao is a senior engineer at China Unicom. He studied in Peking University and obtained his doctorate in July 2014. Since he completed his studied, Chunxu has been working in China Unicom where he obtained expertise in optical communication system research focusing on co-fiber transmission research of quantum and classical signals and realistic quantum applications. In 2019, he was a WSIS prize winner for his demonstrating the Beijing-Xiong quantum communication trunk line. He also serves as co-editor of deliverable D2.4 Technical Report on QKDN Transport Technologies in the ITU-T Focus Group on Quantum Information Technology for Networks (FG-QIT4N). |
