External Person

Bio

MARTIN MAIER is a full professor at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), Montreal, Canada. He was educated at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and received MSc and PhD degrees (both with distinctions) in 1998 and 2003, respectively. In the summer of 2003, he was a postdoc fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. He was a visiting professor at Stanford University, Stanford, October 2006 through March 2007. Further, he was a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow (IIF) of the European Commission from March 2014 through February 2015. Dr. Maier is a co-recipient of the 2009 IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award and Best Paper Award presented at The International Society of Optical Engineers (SPIE) Photonics East 2000-Terabit Optical Networking Conference. He is the founder and creative director of the Optical Zeitgeist Laboratory (www.zeitgeistlab.ca). His research activities aim at rethinking the role of optical networks and exploring novel applications of optical networking concepts and technologies across multidisciplinary domains, with a particular focus on communications, energy, and transport for emerging smart grid applications and bimodal fiber-wireless (FiWi) networks for broadband access. He is the author of the book "Optical Switching Networks"(Cambridge University Press, 2008), which was translated into Japanese in 2009, the lead author of the book "FiWi Access Networks" (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and (co)author of over 100 journal and conference proceedings publications. He served on the Technical Program Committees of IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE GLOBECOM, and IEEE ICC, and is an Editorial Board member of the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials as well as ELSEVIER Computer Communications. He is a Senior Member of IEEE. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of the IEEE Technical Subcommittee on Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) Integration.

Motto

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. (Mark Twain, 1835-1910)

Research Interests

Dr. Maier's research activities aim at providing insights into technologies, protocols, and algorithms shaping the future of bimodal Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) networks for unified broadband access as well as exploring new ways of deploying emerging optical fiber and wireless technologies in related multidisciplinary research areas. His work aims at rethinking the role of FiWi access networks in order to unleash their full potential, including their future convergence with other technologies and economic sectors. Together with his students, he currently focuses on FiWi enabled human-to-robot communications to help merge and recombine mobile Internet, automation of knowledge work, Internet of Things, cloud technology, and advanced robotics, which represent the five technologies with the highest estimated potential economic impact in 2025. The group's FiWi research activities are intended to merge and recombine these five general purpose technologies in order to multiply their impact on society.