Changes to the Deputy Directorate of the Optoelectronics Research Centre
Professor Periklis Petropoulos and Professor Michalis N. Zervas have been appointed as the new Deputy Directors of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC). The announcement follows the departure of former Deputy Director, Professor David Richardson, to Microsoft after they acquired his spin-out company Lumenisity in December 2022. The existing Fibre and Lasers Group, previously led by David, will be divided into two separate groups: the Telecommunications Group, led by Periklis, and the Fibre Lasers and Devices group, led by Michalis.
The Director, David Payne, said “While David Richardson’s shoes are hard to fill, both Michalis and Periklis have huge talent and a remarkable track record. They are itching to get into their new roles and will make a substantial difference to our management team. We are currently working on the membership of their two groups.”
Professor Periklis Petropoulos
Periklis is currently a Professor of Optical Communications and the Deputy Head of School (Research) at the ORC. His research interests lie in the fields of optical communications, all-optical signal processing and novel fibre and waveguide technologies. His research has produced more than 550 papers in technical journals and conference proceedings, and he holds 6 patents.
Periklis has served as member of the Technical Programme Committees for several international conferences, including the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) and the Optical Fibre Communication (OFC) Conference. He is also a founding member of the Management Board of the UK’s National Dark Fibre Facility (NDFF), an installed fibre network dedicated to research purposes.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of IET Optoelectronics and a Fellow of Optica.
Professor Michalis N. Zervas
Michalis joined the ORC in 1991 as a Research Fellow and has since been involved in researching advanced optical fibre amplifier configurations, high power fibre lasers, fibre DFB lasers, Bragg grating theory and devices, surface-plasmon effects and devices, optical micro resonators, and non-linear fibre optics. He has authored and co-authored over 340 technical publications, he holds 20 patents and has served on various conference program committees.
He is a co-founder of Southampton Photonics Inc., a University of Southampton spin-off, since acquired by the Trumpf Group, a manufacturer of high-power fibre lasers.
In 2016 he was awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Advanced Fibre Laser Technologies for Future Manufacturing. He is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Lightwave Technology, having previously served as Associate Editor of Optics Express. He has been an Optical Society of America Fellow since 2015.