Boon S. Ooi

Boon S. Ooi is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. He received a PhD in electronics and electrical engineering from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He is a co-founder of AK-Sens, a technology company focused on commercializing distributed fiber optic sensors for a wide range of applications in the oil and gas, as well as agriculture, industries. His research interests include high-speed optoelectronics and optical wireless communications. To date, he has trained 38 PhD students and 17 postdocs and placed them in top places in academia, industry, and government all over the world.

Ooi has established several national- and international-wide photonic initiatives in Saudi Arabia, secured investments in photonics research, provided training to Saudi engineers and scientists and conducted public outreach to promote optics and photonics education to all levels. An active volunteer, he has served in a variety of roles including Associate Editor of the Optics Express, Senior Editor of the IEEE Photonics Journal, OFC Technical Program Committee, CLEO Technical Program Committee, CLEO-Pacific Rim Co-Chair, Latin America Optics and Photonics Conference Technical Program Committee, and Optica Saudi Student Chapter Faculty Advisor. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

He is a Fellow of Optica, IEEE, SPIE, IoP, and the US National Academy of Inventors. He is an inventor of 41 issued US Patents and a recipient of a number of awards, including the Khalifa International Award, the 2024 Oil and Gas Technical Innovation of the Year Award, the International Date Palm Innovation Prize, and the PIFI Distinguished Scientist Award. In 2024, he received the Sang Soo Lee Award, “For pioneering the field of optoelectronic devices and systems and growing the optics and photonics community in Saudi Arabia.”