Professor Jaafar Elmirghani

Professor Jaafar Elmirghani is Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of the IET, Fellow of the Institute of Physics and Professor of Communication Networks and Systems in the Department of Engineering, Kings College London, UK. He joined King's in 2022 after having been full professor, University of Leeds 2007-2022 and University of Wales Swansea 2000-2007.

Professor Elmirghani received his BSc in Electrical Engineering, First Class Honours from the University of Khartoum in 1989 and was awarded all four prizes in the department for academic distinction. He received his PhD in the synchronisation of optical systems and optical receiver design from the University of Huddersfield, UK in 1994 and the DSc in Communication Systems and Networks from University of Leeds, UK, in 2012. He co-authored Photonic Switching Technology: Systems and Networks, (Wiley), has published over 550 papers and has supervised to completion over 60 PhD students.

Professor Elmirghani was Chairman of the IEEE UK and RI Communications Chapter and was Chairman of IEEE Comsoc Transmission Access and Optical Systems Committee and Chairman of IEEE Comsoc Signal Processing and Communication Electronics (SPCE) Committee. He was a member of IEEE ComSoc Technical Activities Council’ (TAC), is an editor of IEEE Communications Magazine and is and has been on the technical program committee of 43 IEEE ICC/GLOBECOM conferences between 1995 and 2022 including 21 times as Symposium Chair. He was founding Chair of the Advanced Signal Processing for Communication Symposium which started at IEEE GLOBECOM’99 and has continued since at every ICC and GLOBECOM. Prof. Elmirghani was also founding Chair of the first IEEE ICC/GLOBECOM optical symposium at GLOBECOM’00, the Future Photonic Network Technologies, Architectures and Protocols Symposium. He chaired this Symposium, which continues to date. He is the founding chair of the first Green Track at ICC/GLOBECOM at GLOBECOM 2011, and is Chair of the IEEE Sustainable ICT Initiative, a pan IEEE Societies Initiative responsible for Green ICT activities across IEEE, 2012-present. 

Professor Elmirghani is currently an Area Editor of IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications series on Machine Learning for Communications, an editor of IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, IET Optoelectronics and Journal of Optical Communications, and was editor of IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications series on Green Communications and Networking. He was Co-Chair of the GreenTouch Wired, Core and Access Networks Working Group, an adviser to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, member of the Royal Society International Joint Projects Panel and member of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) College.

Professor Elmirghani also founded Ultracell Networks Ltd in 2020 which is commercialising his research in energy efficient network design. He leads a number of research projects and has research interests in communication networks, wireless and optical communication systems.

 About 

• PI of £6.6m EPSRC TOWS (Terabit Bidirectional Multi-user Optical Wireless System (TOWS) for 6G LiFi) Programme Grant, EP/S016570/1, 2019-2024.
• PI of £5.9m EPSRC INTERNET (INTelligent Energy awaRe NETworks) Programme Grant, EP/H040536/1, 2010-2016.
• Elected Fellow of IEEE for “Contributions to Energy-Efficient Communications,” 2021.
• Received IEEE Communications Society Transmission, Access and Optical Systems (TAOS) technical committee Outstanding Technical Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the “energy efficiency of optical communication systems and networks”, 2020.
• Awarded the IET 2016 Premium Award for best paper in IET Optoelectronics
• Shared with 6 GreenTouch innovators the 2016 Edison Award in the “Collective Disruption” Category for work on the GreenMeter.
• Received the GreenTouch 1000x award, 2015.
• Received the IEEE Communications Society Transmission, Access and Optical Systems (TAOS) technical committee Outstanding Service Award, for “Leadership and Contributions to the Area of Green Communications”, 2015.
• Received the IEEE Communications Society Signal Processing and Communication Electronics (SPCE) Outstanding Service Award, 2009.
• Received IEEE Communications Society 2005 Hal Sobol award for exemplary service to meetings and conferences.
• Received IEEE Communications Society 2005 Chapter Achievement award.
• IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, 2013-2016.
• Co-Chair of the IEEE Sustainable ICT Initiative, the initiative introduced a range of new IEEE products including the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2017-present), 9 new IEEE standards, an annual IEEE Sustainable ICT summit and a number of white papers.
• Chair of IEEE Comsoc Green ICT Standards Committee (Green ICT - SC), 2017-present (oversees 9 IEEE Standards); and Chair of IEEE Comsoc Energy Efficient ICT (EEICT) Standards Working Group responsible for the setup of 5 new IEEE standards: IEEE P1925.1, IEEE P1926.1, IEEE P1927.1, IEEE P1928.1, IEEE P1929.1.

Research interests

• Energy efficiency and sustainability of communication networks, communication systems and data centres
• Network optimisation
• Machine learning in communication networks
• Optical wireless systems
• Data centre networks