Polina Bayvel

Polina Bayvel is a British engineer and academic who is Professor of Optical Communications and Networks in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London. Born in 1966, she was raised in Kharkiv and Leningrad before moving to England, where she took a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1986 and a doctorate in 1990 at University College London, followed by a Royal Society exchange fellowship at the General Physics Institute in Moscow. Her research aims to raise the speed and capacity of optical fibre communication systems, to understand the nonlinear effects that limit that capacity, and to design high-bandwidth multi-wavelength optical networks. She was among the first to show that the wavelength domain can be used to route traffic in optical networks, an idea since built into commercial systems that carry the internet. Her honours include election to the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002, the Royal Society in 2016, a CBE in 2017 and the Royal Society Rumford Medal in 2023.