Fotini Karinou

Fotini Karinou received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering with M.Sc. in Telecommunications and Information Theory, and the PhD degree on spectrally efficient wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical interconnect networks for high-performance computing systems, from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Patras, in Rio, Greece, in 2007, and 2012, respectively. From Oct. 2016 to May 2017, she was a visiting researcher at Vienna University, at the Experimental Physics Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of Prof. A. Zeilinger, where she worked on quantum cryptography participating in the initial attempts for the realization of a commercial prototype of a quantum key distribution (QKD) system based on polarisation entanglement. From June 2011 to December 2011, she was a visiting researcher with the Photonics Department, at Denmark Technical University, in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she worked on advanced modulation techniques and spectrum-flexible reconfigurable cognitive optical networks. 

From 2013 to 2018, he was a Senior R&D Engineer at Huawei Technologies Duesseldorf GmbH, Optical Technology Department, Optical & Quantum Laboratory, in the German Research Center in Munich, Germany, where she worked on optical transmission systems for datacom, metro/access, and long-haul networks. Also, on optical QKD systems and physical layer prototypes for quantum communications and their integration in WDM deployed telecom networks. 

Since 2018 she is a Principal Research Manager with the Cloud Systems Futures group at Microsoft Research Ltd., Cambridge, U.K., where she is working on developing novel optical technologies for emerging cloud computing systems and network architectures. Her research interests encompass topics such as photonic devices, optical communication systems, datacenter architectures, cryogenic optical interconnects and optical storage.

Fotini is currently serving as an Associate Editor in the IEEE/Optica Journal of Lightwave Technology since 2020 and as General Chair for the IEEE/Optica Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2025. In the past she has served in several honorary positions such as Conference Program Chair for OFC 2023, Technical Program Committee (TPC) Chair for OFC 2020 and TPC Chair for the IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topicals Meeting Series 2020. She has served as TPC Member at OFC 2018-2021, at IEEE/Optica Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) 2021-2023, and at IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) 2020-2024. She has authored and co-authored more than 100 publications in the in top tier (IEEE, Optica) optical fiber technology journals and conferences.

For JLT she is handling submissions on the following topics:

• Optical transmission systems design and experiments
• Datacenter optical interconnects
• Optical fiber networks
• Optical transmitters and receivers