Rate My Professor Auro Perego

Auro Michele Perego is an Associate Professor of Photonics, Associate Professorial Research Fellow, and AIPT Deputy Director at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AIPT) within the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. He also holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship. Perego obtained his BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Como, Italy. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Aston University in 2018, with a thesis entitled 'Instabilities, pattern formation, localized solutions, mode-locking and stochastic effects in nonlinear optical systems and beyond,' supervised by Professor Sergei K. Turitsyn. Since completing his doctorate, he has progressed from Research Fellow to his current associate professorial position, establishing a research group focused on advanced photonic technologies.

Perego's research interests lie at the interface of applied physics and photonic engineering, encompassing mode-locking in fibre and semiconductor lasers, novel techniques for frequency comb generation in optical resonators, parametric amplification and modulation instabilities in nonlinear optical systems, dynamics of coupled excitable lasers, solitons and the Nonlinear Fourier Transform for optical communications, optical sensing, and optical frequency combs for applications in sensing, molecular fingerprinting, communications, exoplanet detection, and microscopy. His key publications include 'Dual-polarization nonlinear Fourier transform-based optical communication system' (Optica, 2018), 'Mode-locking via dissipative Faraday instability' (Nature Communications, 2016), 'Gain through losses in nonlinear optics' (Light: Science & Applications, 2018), 'Pattern generation by dissipative parametric instability' (Physical Review Letters, 2016), and 'Coherent master equation for laser modelocking' (Nature Communications, 2020). Perego was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship in 2020 for developing tuneable dissipative optical frequency combs from visible to mid-infrared wavelengths. He serves as principal investigator on a Royal Society International Science Partnerships Fund grant, supervises PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, and chaired the Optical Frequency Combs Workshop at Aston University in 2022. His contributions support UN Sustainable Development Goals such as affordable and clean energy and responsible consumption and production.