I serve as an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department of the College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering (CNSE) at the University at Albany - State University of New York (SUNY). My research work aims to advance the field of communications and networks by exploring innovative technologies that enhance connectivity and address critical challenges in next generation waveforms, coexistance of wireless technologies, and green transmission. I am particularly expert in the Visible Light Communications (VLC)/LiFi technology and interested in leveraging AI and machine learning to optimize communication systems. Furthermore, I work on heterogeneous RF-optical deployments, wireless backscattering and sensing, and electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure.
As an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, I collaborate with Prof. Slawomir Stanczak at Technische Universität Berlin (TU-Berlin) and Fraunhofer HHI. Before joining the University at Albany, I was a Research Professor at Boston University, where I had the opportunity to collaborate with Prof. Tom Little . I earned my PhD in 2010 from Constructor University (formerly Jacobs University), Germany under the supervision of Prof. Harald Haas at the University of Cambridge.
I'm actively looking for students to join the SINE lab.
Nov. 2024 Presenting at the MECOM 2024, IEEE Middle East Conference on Communications and Networking, 17–20 November 2024, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Jan. 2024 Editor-in-Chief for the SCIFINITI Comm & Optics Connect, a dynamic, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing the frontiers of communication systems, networks, and optics..
Jan. 2024 Visiting Al Ain University, Al Ain, UAE. Attending the third and final meeting of the FlyServ project.
Jan. 2022 Awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. starting summer 2022, I will be visiting the Technische Universität Berlin (TU-Berlin).
Dec. 2019 Elgala and Little awarded US patent for system and method for embedding phase and amplitude into a real-valued unipolar signal. US Patent No. 10,491,305 B2.
Dec. 2019 I will be visiting Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. I will be collaborating with Prof. Sami Muhaidat and the advanced Wireless Communications Research Group (AWCRG).
April 2019 I will be moderating the Symposium: A Light in Digital Darkness: Optical Wireless Communications to Connect the Unconnected at the Advanced Photonics Congress, 29 July – 01 August 2019, Burlingame, CA, USA.
Aug. 2018 I am contributing to the Best Reading in Optical Wireless Communications, the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc).
June 2018 Read the University at Albany article 5 Questions with Faculty: Hany Elgala.
May 2018 I am collaborating with the Center of Technology in Government on Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. The work on Intelligent Transportation based UWB is featured in the New York Times and the Metro Magazine. Also read the university article on Developing Intelligent Transportation.
Active FlyServ : Indoor Hybrid Flying Networks for Safety Applications and Services is funded by the ASPIRE Program in Abu Dhabi, United Arab of Emirates. Project Website FlyServ
2019-23 CHRONOS : A Cloud based Hybrid RF-Optical Network Over Synchronous Links is funded by the NSF CISE Research Infrastructure (CRI) program. Project Website CHRONOS
2016-20 CROWD : Coexistence of Directional Communications within 5G Networks: The Case of Visible Light Enhanced Small-Cells got funded by the NSF Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS) program. Project Website CROWD Networks
2016-19 Multi-Service VLC: The proposal Illumination, sensing and communication using orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) based visible light communication (VLC) systems is funded through the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) For Lighting Enabled Systems & Applications (LISA). Project Website LESA ERC
2016-2017 The proposal Intelligent Transportation based UWB Positioning and Connectivity is funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York state . In collaboration with the University at Albany Center for Technology in Government.
2012-2013 Recieving the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Bremen´s Funding Program (BRUT) funding, Germany.
Active Editor-in-Chief for the SCIFINITI Comm & Optics Connect, a dynamic, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing the frontiers of communication systems, networks, and optics..
Active Associate Editor for the Optical Communications and Networks, specialty section of Frontiers in Communications and Networks.
2020-22 Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications (TCOM), Optical Wireless Systems and Networks.
Oct. 2018 Guest and Lead Editor for the IEEE TCCN Special Section: Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless Deployments.
Sept. 2018 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the OSA Signal Processing in Photonics Communications (SPPCom) at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 29 July – 01 August 2019, Burlingame, CA, USA.
June 2017 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the International Workshop on 5G and Beyond for Industrial Internet (5G-I2net 2018) collocated with IEEE International Conference on Industrial Internet (ICII), 21‐23 October 2018, Bellevue, WA, USA.
Nov. 2017 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the OSA Signal Processing in Photonics Communications (SPPCom) at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 2‐5 July 2018, Zurich, Switzerland.
Apr. 2017 Guest Editor for the IEEE Access Special Section: Optical Wireless Technologies for 5G Communications and Beyond.
Dec. 2015 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Optical Wireless Communication Workshop at the at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2015), December 6, 2015, in San Diego, California, USA.
Dec. 2015 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Optical Networks and Systems Symposium at the at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2015), December 6, 2015, in San Diego, California, USA.
June 2015: Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Workshop on Visible Light Communications and Networking at the at the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2015), June 8-12, 2015, London, UK.
Dec. 2015 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2015-Spring), May 11–14, 2015, Glasgow, Scotland.
Dec. 2014 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC 2014) at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2014), December 8-12, 2014, Austin Texas, USA.
Oct. 2014 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Optical Wireless Communications Symposium at the at the IEEE Conference on Wireless Communications and Signal Processing (WCSP 2014), October 23-25, 2014, Hefei, China.
Dec. 2013 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC 2013) at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2013), December 9-13, 2013, Atlanta GA, USA.
Dec. 2013 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the International Conference on Connected Vehicles & Expo (ICCVE 2013), December 2-6, 2013, Las Vegas CA, USA.
Oct. 2013 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the IEEE International Conference on Photonics (ICP 2013), October 28-30, 2013, Melaka, Malaysia.
Sept. 2013 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the International Workshop on Fiber Optics in Access Networks (FOAN 2013), September 11-12, 2013, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Dec. 2012 Joining the Technical Program Committee for the Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications (OWC 2012) at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM 2012), December 3-7, 2012, Anaheim CA, USA.
Dec. 2023 Invited talk at the IEEE conference on Advanced Networking and Telecommunications IEEE ANTS. The workshop on Optical Wireless Communication SystemsWOWS
Sept. 23 Guest speaker at the General Electric GE 2023 EDGE Symposium . The 5G Session.
Feb. 2022 I am invited to be a panelist and talk about Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) after the movie screening Canary in a Gold Mine.
May 2021 I will join a panel about Teaching and Interface of Machine Learning (ML) in Engineering and Finance, at the 28th Annual Global Finance Conference (GFC), 27-29 May, 2021 .
July 2020 I will offer a webinar on Visible Light Communications for 5G-and-beyond, 10:00 EDT, 28 Sept. 2020. OSA CareerLab, 5G webinars . You can register here.
June 2020 I will preside two sessions (Transmission Experiments and Signal Processing II) during the OSA Signal Processing in Photonics Communications (SPPCom) at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 13 July – 16 July 2020 (virtual event).
Nov. 2019 Invited talk at the IEEE Schenectady Section. Topic: Visible Light Communications: From Classical to Machine Learning Links. DATE and TIME: November 21st, 2019, Thursday, 12 to 1:00 PM. LOCATION: ES108, Earth Science & Mathematics Building, University of Albany, 1400 Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12222. SPONSORED BY: IEEE Industry Applications Society.
Aug. 2019 Oral presentation at the OSA Advanced Photonics Congress 2019, SpT2E: Digital Signal Processing 1, Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom), Tuesday, July 30, 11:30 - 11:45, Burlingame, CA, USA.
Dec. 2018 Oral presentation at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom 2018), ONS-2: Optical Network Architectures, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 8:30 - 10:00, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Aug. 2017 Invited talk "Visible Light Based Backscatter Communication" at the the European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), the Optical Wireless Communication workshop.
Jul. 2016 Invited talk "Flavors of optical OFDM and their dimming compatibility" at the workshop on Visible Light Communications, International Conference on Information Optics and Photonics (CIOP 2016).
Apr. 2016 Tutorial & Invited talk at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC 2016), Doha, Qatar.
Apr. 2016Seminar talk "Get Connected Through Light" at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Newark, USA.
Mar. 2015 Oral presentation at the WCNC 2015, New Orleans, USA.
Nov. 2014 Oral presentation at the Asilomar 2014, Pacific Grove, USA.
Sept. 2014 Invited talk at the SSL Ecosystem 2014: Lighting in the Information Age, Cambridge, USA.
Sept. 2014 Oral presentation at the PIMRC 2014, Washington DC, USA.
Jun. 2014 Oral presentation at the New England Workshop on Software Defined Radio (NEWSDR 14), Boston, USA.
March 2014 Oral presentation at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC 2014), San Francisco, USA.
Nov. 2013 Seminar talk "High-Speed Wireless Networking Using Indoor LED Lighting" at Boston University (BU).
Apr. 2013 Invited talk "Wireless Communications Potential of Solid-State Lighting: Visible-Light Communications" at the Advanced Energy Conference 2013, New York, USA.
Feb. 2013 Seminar talk "A Visible Approach to the Spectrum Crunch" at Tufts University.
Sept. 2010 Oral presentation at the PIMRC 2010, Istanbul, Turkey.
Jul. 2010 Attending the Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks and Digital Signal Processing (CSNDSP 10), Graz, Austria.
Apr. 2009 Oral presentation at the Conference on Wireless and Optical Communications Networks (WOCN 2009), Cairo, Egypt.
Apr. 2007 Oral presentation at the Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC 2007), Dublin, Ireland.
Jan. 2021 I am serving as a Chair for the OPTICA Signal Processing in Photonics Communications (SPPCom) at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, hybrid meeting format to accommodate both in-person and virtual (online) participation.
Feb. 2020 Organizing a webinar on Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless Deployments (CROWD). I also served as Facilitator for the webinar. You can watch the 2-hours recorded version here.
Jan. 2020 Serving as Program Chair for the OSA Signal Processing in Photonics Communications (SPPCom) at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 13 July – 16 July 2020 (virtual event).
Aug. 2019Chairing the session: SpT2E, Digital Signal Processing 1, SPPCom Oral, Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom), on Tuesday, July 30, 10:30 - 12:30, at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 28 July - 1 August 2019, Burlingame, CA, USA.
Aug. 2019Chairing the session: SpTh3E. Freespace Optics and Visible Light Communication, SPPCom Oral, Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom), on Thursday, August 01, 2:00 - 4:00, at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 28 July - 1 August 2019, Burlingame, CA, USA.
Dec. 2018 As a Program Chair, I'm serving at the OSA Signal Processing in Photonics Communications (SPPCom) at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 13 July – 16 July 2020 (virtual event).
Nov. 2018 Organizing the Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless Deployments (CROWD 2018) workshop at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC 2019), 15-18 April 2019, Marrakech, Morocco.
Oct. 2018Chairing the session: ONS-4 (Visible light communications II), on Wednesday Dec. 12, 2018 08:30 at the IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom 2018), 9-13 December 2018, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
June 2018Chairing the session: Access Networks and Free Space Communications, on Thursday, July 5, 2018 at the Optics & Photonics Congress on Advanced Photonics, 2‐5 July 2018, Zurich, Switzerland.
June 2018 Organizing the Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless Deployments (CROWD 2018) workshop at the IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP 2018), September 24-27, 2018, Cambridge, UK.
Jan. 2018 Chairing the session: Track 4: Wireless Communications: Fundamentals & PHY (I) at the IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference,12-15 January 2018, Las Vegas, USA.
Nov. 2017 Chairing the Wireless Optical Networks (WON) symposium at the 14th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2018), 25-29 June 2018, Limassol, Cyprus.
July 2017 Organizing the Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless Deployments (CROWD 2017) workshop at the IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC 2017), 08-13 October 2017, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Feb. 2017Chairing the PHY sessions (PHY-02 and PHY-15) at the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC 2015), March 09-12, 2015, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Our research is supported by: