Kim Roberts in undoubtedly one of the world most knowledge and experienced individuals in optical signaling and transmission. He is coming to UW to deliver a short course on May 11th, and if there is enough interest, this course could be open to all UW members (it is of course free of charge). The course is from 9:30am to 12:00pm and after lunch from 1:30pm to 4:00pm (with breaks in between for discussions).

Course summary : The Optical Channel: This course will construct a communications channel model for the single mode optical fiber connection. Coherent and incoherent transducers will be coupled to linear and nonlinear optical propagation. Polarization effects will be explained. Distributed noise sources will be traded-off against distributed nonlinearities. This model will be applicable to high capacity optical transmission systems with multiple wavelengths and with reaches from 100 to 10,000km.

Biography : Kim Roberts has innovated in the areas of optical transmission and high capacity packet connections since 1984. His creations are at the heart of much of Nortel's optical transmission portfolio from the first OC-48 to the 100 Gb/s DSP-assisted coherent transceiver. He has been granted 86 US patents while at the Nortel labs in Edmonton, Harlow UK, and Ottawa. Kim holds a BASc and MASc. in Electrical Engineering from UBC and is a Nortel Fellow. Kim received the Outstanding Engineer medal in 2008 from IEEE Canada.