Partners and Management Board

Gerard Parr holds the Full Chair in Telecommunications Engineering and is Head of School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He holds a PhD in Self-Stabilising Protocols from Ulster University, aspects of which were completed with UCL and under supervision of the founding Fathers of the Internet (Professor Jon Postel) as a Visiting Research Scientist at the DARPA/University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles. Within his academic career, areas of research include Wireless Sensor Clouds, Disaster Response Communications, ICT for the Rural Economy, delay-sensitive protocols, and energy-aware autonomic network management and IoT-edge computing. He has attracted several £millions of external research and commercial funding and has advised governments on the allocation of funding to large-scale projects valued in total at approximately £3 billion. Gerard was previously the UK PI on the EPSRC India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IU-ATC) in Next Generation Networks, Systems and Services which was the largest ICT research collaboration of its kind- scaling to over £20 million. He has also been a Co-PI on EPSRC CommNet2 Network, Digital Economy IT-as-a-Utility Network and is currently Co-I on the EPSRC DE Internet-of-Food-Things Network Plus and recently a Co-PI on the £12mil Next Stage Digital Economy Hub- Project DIGIT- (EP/T022566/1) with Exeter and Oxford Brookes. He is also the PI on the EPSRC UK-India Future Networks Initiative. Find out more about Gerard Parr.

K V S Hari is a Professor in the Department of ECE, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He holds a BE (ECE) degree from Osmania University, Hyderabad, MTech (Radar and Communication Systems) from IIT Delhi and  PhD (Systems science) from U C San Diego and has been a visiting faculty at Stanford University and Affiliate Professor at KTH- Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. His research interests are in Signal Processing with applications to 5G wireless communications, radar systems, autonomous vehicles, neuroscience, and affordable MRI systems. He is a co-author of the IEEE 802.16 standard on wireless channel models. He was an Editor of EURASIP’s Signal Processing (2006-16) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief (Electrical Sciences) of Sadhana, the journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences published by Springer. He is currently Chair, Standardisation Committee, Telecom Standards Development Society, India. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of IEEE. He is on the Board of Governors, IEEE Signal Processing Society as VP-Membership. Find out more about K V S Hari.

Professor Rahim Tafazolli is Regius Professor of Electronic Engineering, FREng, Professor of Mobile and Satellite Communications, Founder and Director of 5GIC, 6GIC and ICS (Institute for Communication System) at the University of Surrey. He has over 30 years of experience in digital communications research and teaching and researched on 2G/3G/4G/5G and now on 6G and satellite networks. He has authored and co-authored more than 1000 research publications and more than 30 patents. He is regularly invited to deliver keynote talks and distinguished lectures to international conferences and workshops. He is editor of two wiley book and chief editor of Wiley 5G Reference book. He has been a member of DCMS Task Force on “Diversification of Telecom Ecosystem”. He has also acted as advisor to Boris Johnson as Mayor of London on London Infrastructure for 2050. Find out more about Rahim Tafazolli.

Professor Steve Hailes is Professor of Wireless Systems and Head of Department for UCL Computer Science He graduated with a PhD from Cambridge University and came to work at UCL as a post-doctoral researcher nearly 30 years ago, researching in the area of multimedia systems. In that role, he performed the first public demonstration of video conferencing over IP networks in the UK. His research interests developed in three main directions: trust and security, in which he was one of the founders of the field of computational trust; networking, in which he is currently working on the area of networked industrial control systems, specifically Industry 4.0 and mobile and sensor systems for a variety of applications. He is leading the development of the Robotics and AI programme for UCL EAST. Find out more about Steve Hailes.

Prof Lajos Hanzo (Southampton) He has been at Southampton since 1986 and since 1998 he has been the head of the academic research team Next-Generation Wireless working on a range of research projects in the field of multimedia communications aiming for flawless tele-presence. His research is sponsored by industry, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the European Research Council’s Advanced Fellow Award QuantCom. The QuantCom project innovates in pushing the boundaries of quantum communications. He has been a member of the Mobile Virtual Centre of Excellence (VCE), UK since its inception. His team has contributed to the research of the 3G, 4G and 5G systems. He published 19 John Wiley – IEEE Press books and 1900+ contributions at IEEE Xplore. He has about 60 000 citations and an H-index of 99. Find out more about Lajos Hanzo.

Ram and Sita Sabnani Chair Professor, Dept of Electrical Engineering  & Bharti School of Telecom Technology and Management. His research interests are in:
Optics – including photonic circuits, photonic networks, photonic switching, optical communication and opto-electronic subsystems, integrated optical devices, MOEMS, fibre optics, optical sensing, optical phenomena, free-space optical communication and optical effects. Embedded Telecom Systems- including sensor networks, protocols and real-time operating systems. Telecom Transmission and Switching – including green access networks, inter-working, signalling systems and protocols, network management and switching. Special Interests:-
Automotive Networks – real-time control, automotive instrumentation, safety devices, automotive networks, Deep Space Communication – inter-satellite communications, ground-to-satellite communications, pointing and tracking system design; Bio-medical Instrumentation – bio-assistive devices, bio-medical instrumentation, bio-inspired interfaces. Find out more about Subrat Kar.

Nader Azarmi joined BT in 1989 and pioneered and led BT’s highly successful international Intelligent Systems research and innovation initiative. He is currently leading BT’s Global Research and Innovation programme which consists of a number of centres/lablets across the world, including BT India Research Centre in Bangalore-India. He was the co-founder and industrial lead of India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IUATC). He has been collaborating with Indian academia and industry over the last 20 years.
He has personally been awarded a number of prestigious international and national awards for his work in research and application of Artificial Intelligence technology in industry, notably the Royal Academy of Engineering medal, the IET achievement medal, INFORMS-Franz Edelman finalist medal, the British Computer Society IT medal, BT’s Martlesham Medal and BT’s Alan Rudge best patent prize. Find out more about Nader Azarmi.