International awards: Luca Valcarenghi, TeCIP Institute professor, receives the "Malathi Veeraraghavan ONTC Service Award" for his efforts in promoting the activity and research of the optical networking community worldwide

The Optical Networking Technical Committee (ONTC) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Communications Society (ComSoc) has awarded Luca Valcarenghi, Professor at the TeCIP Institute, the "Malathi Veeraraghavan ONTC Service Award" for "outstanding service to the optical networking community." The prestigious award, named after the memory of Malathi Veeraraghavan (University of Virginia), was given, by an ad hoc subcommittee of the ONTC, in recognition of Luca Valcarenghi's contribution in promoting the activity and research of the optical networking community worldwide while also addressing the new challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic period. The award will be presented to Valcarenghi at the next technical committee meeting in May 2023.

The Optical Networking Technical Committee (ONTC) serves as the worldwide focal point of the IEEE ComSoc in the area of optical networking technologies. The Technical Committee plays an active role in stimulating and organizing symposia, workshops, sessions, and tutorials on state-of-the-art optical networks at international. It also collaborates with the publication departments of ComSoc, existing ComSoc technical committees and related societies to organize journal publications on recent discoveries related to optical networks. The Technical Committee is also a proactive facilitator in the dissemination of evolving optical network standards, working closely with standardization forums such as OIF, IETF and ITU/T1.

"I am deeply honored to have received this award - says Luca Valcarenghi - which recognizes the relevance of the contribution of Italian scientists to optical network research at the international level. I would like to thank the current chairs of the technical committee, Zuqing Zhu (University of Science and Technology of China), Elaine Wong (University of Melbourne) and Massimo Tornatore (Politecnico di Milano), the award subcommittee, all the mentors who have guided me throughout my career (Fabio Neri, Andrea Fumagalli, Giancarlo Prati, Piero Castoldi and many others), my colleagues and my family without whose help I could not have achieved this award. I consider such an award not as an end point but as an additional stimulus to continue my contribution to the scientific community".