Chedlia Ben Naila Bekkali (Serra Húnter Assistant Professor)

Chedlia Ben Naila received her Ph.D. from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2012. She is currently a Serra Húnter Assistant Professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Spain. Previously, she served as an Assistant Professor at Nagoya University, Japan (2020–2024), a Junior Lecturer at Iset’Com, Tunisia (2005–2008), and an Adjunct Lecturer at Waseda University, Japan (2014–2019).

Her research achievements include both fundamental and applied advances in high-capacity, energy-efficient optical wireless communications (OWC) for terrestrial and underwater scenarios. Her expertise spans LED-based OWC, free-space optics, radio-over-fiber, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), and hybrid underwater OWC–FSO networks. With over 20 journal articles and more than 50 conference papers, her contributions include industry-developed MIMO-OWC prototypes and energy-efficient RIS-assisted optical architectures for B5G/6G networks.

She has secured competitive research funding in Japan and led impactful industry collaborations. Her achievements have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including Waseda University Ono Azusa Memorial Academic Gold Medal (2011), IIEEJ Journal Best Paper Award (2012), Telecom System Technology Award (2011), and IEEE ITU-T Kaleidoscope Best Paper Award (2011).

Beyond her research achievements, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to service and leadership within IEEE. She serves as Secretary for the IEEE VTS Young Professional Committee and as Lead Coordinator of its Young Professionals Webinar Series. She also serves as Secretary of the IEEE ComSoc’s Optical Networking and Systems (ONS) Technical Committee.

Her conference leadership roles include serving as Technical Program Chair for the IEEE MeditCom 2027, ONS Symposium Co-Chair for IEEE ICC 2026, WICE Liaison Chair for IEEE MECOM 2026, Sponsor Co-Chair for the IEEE ICMLCN 2025, and Workshop Co-Chair for IEEE ISCC 2024. She has also co-organized several workshops on optical wireless communications at major IEEE conferences, including IEEE VTC 2025-Spring, IEEE VTC 2024-Spring, and IEEE ISCC 2023. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE OJ-COMS in Optical Communications and Networks.