Rate My Professor Alex Alvarado

Alex Alvarado is a Full Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where he leads the Information and Communication Theory Lab in the Signal Processing Systems group. He holds an Electronics Engineer degree (Ingeniero Civil Electrónico) and an MSc from Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile, earned in 2003 and 2005, respectively. He further obtained a Licentiate of Engineering in 2008 and a PhD in 2011 from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Alvarado's career trajectory includes research fellowships at the University of Cambridge from 2011 to 2014, first as a Newton International Fellow and later as a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow. From 2014 to 2016, he served as Senior Research Associate in the Optical Networks Group at University College London. Joining TU/e in 2016 as Assistant Professor, he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018 and to Full Professor in 2023.

Alvarado's research centers on advancing the theoretical foundations of telecommunication systems, with specializations in communication theory, information theory, signal processing, and optical communications. His work explores high-speed secure data transmission in optical and wireless systems, as well as energy-efficient algorithms that approach fundamental communication limits. He has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers and the book 'Bit-interleaved coded modulation: fundamentals, analysis and design' published in 2015 by Wiley & Sons. Notable publications include 'Replacing the soft-decision FEC limit paradigm in the design of optical communication systems' (Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2015), 'On probabilistic shaping of quadrature amplitude modulation for the nonlinear fiber channel' (2016), and 'Capacity of a nonlinear optical channel with finite memory' (Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2014). His scholarship has received more than 5,000 citations. Alvarado has garnered several accolades, such as Best Paper Awards at the Asia Communications and Photonics Conference (2018, 2023), the Optoelectronics and Communications Conference (2019), IEEE Information Theory Workshop (2009), and IEEE Communication Theory Workshop (2013), along with the 2015 IEEE Transactions on Communications Exemplary Reviewer Award and Journal of Lightwave Technology Best Paper Award. He served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications from 2016 to 2018, contributed to OFC and ECOC subcommittees, and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. His research has been supported by an NWO VIDI grant and an ERC Starting grant.