PhD candidate Gregory Tanyi receives Marconi Society Young Scholar Award

Electrical and Electronic Engineering PhD candidate Gregory Tanyi has received the prestigious 2022 Marconi Society Paul Baran Young Scholar Award for his innovations in an on-chip receiver platform that enables direct conversion of wireless signals to optical signals.

The Young Scholar Award recognises brilliant and creative researchers who are 27 years old or younger and are advancing information and communication technology for a more inclusive and diverse world.

Originally from Cameroon, Mr Tanyi’s passion for research collaboration through networks such as the Marconi Society is driven by his belief that achieving a faster and more energy efficient Internet network infrastructure is a game changer for social equity.

“The Internet has the power to change cultures by letting people solve their own problems,” Mr Tanyi said.

“I am honoured to be a Marconi Society Paul Baran Young Scholar to contribute to these positive changes and I am extremely grateful to my doctoral advisors, Professor Ranjith Unnithan and Professor Christina Lim, for their guidance and support.”

Early potential uses of Mr Tanyi’s innovations include smart cars, which need sensor data to be processed in the optical domain, requiring the merger of communication and sensor functions to minimise processing time delay.

The conversion of high frequency wireless signals to the optical domain is an area of huge interest for advanced communication and sensing.

Mr Tanyi’s work also supports aerospace applications, which need on-chip solutions to reduce size, weight and power consumption of payloads, and next-generation wireless communications, which must access millimetre wave frequencies and have full convergence between the optical fibre and wireless segments to meet the growing bandwidth requirements of the Internet.