Professor John Senior, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) joined the University of Hertfordshire as Dean of Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences in 1998 moving from the post of Head of Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Manchester Metropolitan University.  He has substantial experience over 25 years of research in optical communications and networking including pioneering activities concerned with optical fibre local area networks (LANs) and passive optical networks (PONs).  John has lead research in a range of aspects including device and subsystem technology together with system and network development at both physical and medium access control levels (i.e. novel protocol development and analysis).  He is particularly well known for his major textbook Optical Fibre Communications:  Principles and Practice (Pearson/Prentice Hall) first published in 1985 with a third edition released in 2009. 

John has also published widely the results of his research with now over 260 refereed journal and conference papers, being awarded a DSc degree for these research outputs in 2001.  The focus for his more recent research has been concerned with the convergence of both optical and wireless technology for the telecommunication access network.  In addition, John served on the EPSRC Peer Review College from 1995 to 2011, was on the editorial board of Photonic Network Communications from 2001 to 2012, remains on the editorial board of the European Transactions in Telecommunications and is a co-opted member of the Engineering Professors Council Committee.