Our People
Centre Team
Professor Harald Haas
Director of LiFi Research and Development Centre, Distinguished Professor of Mobile Communications
Harald Haas (Fellow, IEEE) is the Director of the LiFi Research and Development Centre at the University of Strathclyde. He is also the Initiator, co-founder, and Chief Scientific Officer of pureLiFi Ltd. He received the Ph.D. degree from The University of Edinburgh in 2001. He has authored 550 conference and journal papers, including papers in Science and Nature Communications. Haas’ main research interests are in optical wireless communications, hybrid optical wireless and RF communications, spatial modulation, and interference coordination in wireless networks. His team invented spatial modulation. He introduced LiFi to the public at an invited TED Global talk in 2011. This talk on Wireless Data from Every Light Bulb has been watched online over 2.72 million times. LiFi was listed among the 50 best inventions in TIME Magazine in 2011. He gave a second TED Global lecture in 2015 on the use of solar cells as LiFi data detectors and energy harvesters. This has been viewed online over 2.75 million times. In 2016, he received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the International Solid State Lighting Alliance. In 2019 he was recipient of IEEE Vehicular Society James Evans Avant Garde Award. Haas was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) in 2017. In the same year he received a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and was elevated to IEEE Fellow. In 2018 he received a three-year EPSRC Established Career Fellowship extension and was elected Fellow of the IET. Haas was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2019.
Adrian Sparks
Opto-Electronic Engineer
Adrian has been a member of the LiFi Research and Development Centre since 2018, working on high speed laser modulators and optical receivers. He is an experienced industrial research and development engineer with 15 patents granted. Previously he has led the development of RF over fibre and optical fibre sensing products which are now sold all over the world. He has a BSc in physics from the University of Bath and an MBA from the University of Essex. He enjoys skiing, cycling and running.
Sovan Das
Systems Engineer
Sovan received the B.Eng degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore in 2017 and then submitted his PhD thesis entitled “Photovoltaics as Optical Wireless Communication Receivers” at the University of Edinburgh in September 2021. His primary research interests include photovoltaics as FSO receivers, LiFi, optical wireless communications and autonomous aerial robotics.
Dr Hanaa Abumarshoud
Research Associate
Hanaa was awarded her M.Sc and PhD degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2013 and 2017 respectively, from Khalifa University, UAE. Her main expertise is the application of information theory and signal processing techniques in visible light communication and LiFi systems, with a particular focus on intelligent communications, resource allocation, multi-user access and physical layer security.
Dr Anil Yesilkaya
Research Associate
Anil received his B.Sc (Hons) and M.Sc degrees in Electronics Engineering from Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2014 and 2016 respectively. He went on to receive his PhD degree from the University of Edinburgh in Digital Communications in 2021. His research interests include 5G radio systems, multiple-input multiple-output optical wireless communications and LiFi-based in-flight connectivity. In 2018, he received the Best Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).
Dr Elham Sarbazi
Research Associate
Elham was awarded her PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh in 2019. She received her B.Sc degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Tehran in 2011, and her M.Sc degree in Electrical Engineering from Ozyegin University, Turkey in 2014. Her current research focuses mainly on 6G optical wireless communications.
Hannah Brown
PA and Team Administrator
Hannah has been a member of the LiFi Research and Development Centre since 2017, working as Professor Haas’ PA and managing the wider administrative duties on behalf of the Centre. Previously Hannah has held several positions working in the UK Parliament and graduated from the University of Glasgow in 2015 with an MA in Politics and International Relations.
Dr Stefan Videv
Director of Engineering
Stefan’s research focus is on visible light communications and his interests include prototyping communication systems, smart resource allocation, and energy efficient communications. He was awarded his PhD for his thesis, ‘Techniques for Green Radio Cellular Communications’ in 2013 from the University of Edinburgh.
Dr Sina Bibadi
Optical Engineer
Sina received his BSc degree in Electrical Engineering from Azad Tehran University, Iran in 2005. After graduation, he worked as an electrical engineer on a construction site until 2012. He then received his M.Sc in Electrical and Power Electronics from the University of Bradford in 2011. In 2013, he started his PhD degree at Glasgow Caledonian University, where he graduated in 2017. His main research interests are in lighting systems, optical concentrators, lightguide and visible light communication.
Dr Cheng Chen
Research Associate
Cheng received his B.Eng degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in 2011. He went on to receive his M.Sc degree in Communications and Signal Processing from Imperial College, London in 2012. In 2017, he received his PhD degree from the University of Edinburgh in Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on optical wireless communication, visible light communication and wireless communication for 6G. He has authored and co-authored 30 publications in these areas.
Dr Trang Nguyen
Research Associate
Trang earned a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Hanoi University of Science and Technology in 2013. He then went on to receive his M.Sc and PhD degrees in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Kookmin University in South Korea in 2015 and 2018 respectively. His research interests mainly focus on the physical layer of Optical Wireless Communications. He has been an active and voting member of the IEEE 80.15.7m Task Group within the IEEE Standards Association from 2015 to 2018.
Dr Hossein Kazemi
Research Associate
Hossein received an M.Sc degree in Electrical Engineering (Microelectronic Circuits) from Sharif University of Technology, Iran in 2011. He then went onto receive an M.Sc degree (Hons) in Electrical Engineering (Wireless Communications) from Ozyegin University, Turkey in 2014, and his PhD degree from the University of Edinburgh in 2019. His main research interests include communication theory, wireless communications and optical wireless communications.
Dr Hamada Alshaer
Senior Research Associate
Hamada received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering and Telecommunications from Pierre et Marie Curie University, France, in 2005. He has researched for over 18 years with INRIA-France, Etisalat and British Telecom, and the Universities of Edinburgh and Leeds, in academic and industrial research development. He authored a book entitled Demanding Traffic Control and Management in Next Generation Networks: QoS Analysis, Network Simulation, Performance Modelling (LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2009). Currently, he is writing a book entitled “Network virtualization: Cloud Networking Protocols and Architectures” with John Wiley & Sons Ltd publisher. His main research activities focus on software-defined mobile and wireless communication systems and networking, with industrial applications to small cell networks virtualization and integration, Internet of Things (IoT), 5G core networks, cyber security, and intelligent transport systems.
Dr Iman Tavakkolnia
Strathclyde Chancellors Felllow (Lecturer)
Iman’s research interests are optical fibre and optical wireless technologies with particular focus on energy efficiency and zero-emission. Iman was awarded his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh in 2018. He received his B.Sc degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Tehran in 2011, and his M.Sc degree in Digital Communication systems from Sharif University of Technology, Iran in 2013.
PhD Students
Janis Sperga
Early Stage Researcher, ENLIGHT'EM Project
Janis received his BSc degree in Physics from the University of Latvia, Riga in 2016. He then went on to receive his M.Sc degree in Materials Physics from the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany in 2019. He is currently part of the MSCA ITN ENLIGHT’EM project as an Early Stage Researcher, working for his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering with the University of Strathclyde. Currently employed by pureLiFi Ltd, his main research interests are optical wireless communication, visible light communication and LiFi.
Yinzhou Tan
PhD Student
Yinzhou received the B.Eng. degree in Electronic Information Science and Technology from Tsinghua University, China, in 2016, and the M.Sc. degree in Signal Processing and Communications from the University of Edinburgh, U.K., in 2017, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Digital Communications. His main research interest is LiFi systems that use coherent detection.
Xiaotong Shen
PhD Student
Xiaotong received the B.Eng. degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Shandong, Jinan, China, in 2008, and the M.Sc. degree with distinction in Mobile Communications from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K., in 2017, and currently is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Professor Harald Haas. His main research interests are in the areas of vehicular visible light communications.
Gianluca Martena
Early Stage Researcher, ENLIGHT'EM Project
Gianluca received his M.Sc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2016. Currently, his work is centered around algorithms for the joint reconfiguration of smart lighting and LiFi access points in dense deployments. His main research interests are in the areas of optical wireless communication, visible light communication, wavelength division paradigms and LiFi in IoT.
Zhihong Zeng
PhD Student
Zhihong received the B.E. degree (Hons.) from the University of Edinburgh, U.K., in 2017, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the Institute for Digital Communications, funded by pureLiFi Ltd. His current research interests include co-channel interference mitigation and resource allocation in wireless cellular networks, visible light communications, and LiFi.