Nigel Cridland - Interim Head of Operational Services Department, Centre for Radiation, Public Health England

Nigel Cridland joined the Non-ionising Radiation Department at NRPB (now PHE) in 1990 and spent around 10 years carrying out research and contributing to reviews on the biological effects of non-ionising radiations. Following this, he was one of the scientific secretaries of Stewart committee on the safety of mobile phones (1999 – 2000) and scientific co-ordinator of the mobile telecommunications and health research (MTHR) programme (2001 – 2012). He has had significant involvement in the development of the European Commission’s practical guides for the optical and EMF Directives, having been a member of the team that drafted the former and leader of the team that wrote the latter. Nigel is a member of the main Commission of the International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) and chairs its ultraviolet radiation guidelines groups. He is currently interim head of the Operational Services Department at the PHE Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards.

Frank de Vocht - Professor in Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Bristol

Frank de Vocht is a Professor in Epidemiology and Public Health, and joined the Centre for Public Health, which is part of Population Health Sciences at Bristol Medical School in 2014. He is funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research and NIHR Applied Research Collaboration West (ARC West). He has over 160 peer-review publications broadly covering the areas of public health, exposure measurements and assessment, and radiation, environmental and occupational epidemiology. He has contributed to book chapters on epidemiology, exposure assessment and the effects of electromagnetic fields on humans. His work is funded by NIHR, the European Union and several charities, and he specializes in epidemiology of lifestyle, environmental, and occupational risk factors. His current research interests are two-fold: the evaluation of natural experiments in public health, specifically in the context of alcohol policies, and secondly the effects of ionising and non-ionizing radiation on human health. Frank de Vocht is a member of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), IRPA NIR Task Group, SRP EMFOR, and Health Council of the Netherlands. He occasionally consults for EPRI.

Martin Fenton - Director of Spectrum Analysis, Ofcom

Martin is Director of Spectrum Analysis in Ofcom’s Spectrum Group. He is also Chairman of ITU-R Study Group 5, the ITU group responsible for all terrestrial radio frequency services. Martin is an expert in international and domestic spectrum regulation; specialising in spectrum policy, interference analysis and RF performance. He has 20 years’ experience in spectrum management at the UK communications regulator, Ofcom, and its predecessor, the Radiocommunications Agency.

Steve Giles - Head of RAN Design, MBNL

Steve joined the Post Office Telecommunications as an apprentice upon leaving School in 1981 and has stuck with Telecommunications ever since, initially in fixed line telephony before beginning his Radio based career when he joined Cellnet in 1989, moving to One2One in 1995. He has worked RF Optimisation, Cell Planning, and Cell Site RF and Infrastructure Design roles spanning all 5 generations from TACs to 5G in that time. Since 2012 he has headed the MBNL Design team where he has responsibility for setting the design standards for the shared network sites, supporting the service ambitions of our shareholders EE and Three UK which includes the RF compliance standards that we apply to the shared sites.

Maria Kelly - Lead Technical Specialist, Leonardo

Moray Rumney - Director, Rumney Telecom, Industrial Fellow, University of Bristol (Communication Systems & Networks Research Group)

Moray Rumney received a BSc in EE from Heriot-Watt University in 1984. He joined Hewlett-Packard that year and remained with the company through the transition to Agilent Technologies in 1999 and Keysight Technologies in 2015. Moray joined ETSI in 1991 and 3GPP in 1999 where he participated in the development of cellular communications standards and conformance test methods. His recent work has focused on radiated test methods for mobile phones. He was editor and major contributor to Agilent’s book “LTE and the Evolution to 4G Wireless”. From 2018 to 2021 Moray represented Keysight at 3GPP RAN plenary who oversee the development of the 5G radio standards. His recent interests include expert witness work, engineering consulting services, and the safety debate around cellular technology including the evolution of test methods to validate that base stations and mobile phones comply with safety regulations.

Mark Beach - Professor of Radio Systems Engineering, University of Bristol (Communication Systems & Networks Research Group)

Mark Beach received his PhD for research addressing the application of Smart Antenna techniques to GPS from the University of Bristol in 1989, where he subsequently joined as a member of academic staff. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1996, Reader in 1998 and Professor in 2003. He was Head of the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from 2006 to 2010, then spearheaded Bristol’s hosting of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Communications. He is the Co-Director of this centre. He leads research in the field of enabling technologies for the delivery of 5G and beyond wireless connectivity; which includes the recent award of an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership in the field of Secure Wireless Agile Networks (SWAN). Mark’s current research activities are delivered through the Communication Systems and Networks Group, forming a key component within Bristol’s Smart Internet Lab. He has over 30 years of physical layer wireless research embracing the application of Spread Spectrum technology for cellular systems, adaptive or smart antenna for capacity and range extension in wireless networks, MIMO aided connectivity for through-put enhancement, experimental evaluation and optimization of Massive MIMO, Millimetre Wave technologies as well as flexible RF technologies for SDR modems. With a strong industrially focused research portfolio, he is also the School Research Impact Director.

Brian Collins - Managing Consultant, BSC Associates

Brian has designed antennas for applications including radio and TV broadcasting, base stations, handsets and consumer products, and has operated his own consultancy firm for the last 12 years. He has published more than 70 papers on antenna topics and contributed chapters to several recent textbooks. He operates a small consultancy company, chairs the Antenna Interface Standards Group and is an Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London.

Paul Harris - Principal Wireless Architect, VIAVI Solutions

Paul is a wireless technology expert with experience across a range of areas including research, design, implementation and standardisation. He received his PhD from the University of Bristol for evaluating the performance of massive MIMO technology in the lead-up to 5G and is currently a Principal Wireless Architect within the CTO Office at VIAVI Solutions providing thought leadership on new and emerging technologies for 5G, 6G and beyond. In line with this he represents VIAVI within a range of bodies and fora including 3GPP, the O-RAN Alliance, ETSI, the Next G Alliance, the 6G-IA and the UKTIN. His experience prior to joining VIAVI includes representing Vodafone within 3GPP for radio performance aspects, contributing to the development of massive MIMO channel estimation solutions at Cohere Technologies, and working with customers as a domain expert at National Instruments to establish effective research solutions using software-defined radio. He is also a Chartered Engineer, Senior Member of the IEEE, Fellow of the ITP, and an Honorary Industrial Fellow at the University of Bristol.

Peter Kibutu - 5G NTN Market lead, TTP plc

Peter has been working in the cellular industry for over 15 years, specialising in modem system architecture and physical layer development. Before joining TTP, Peter worked in the development of 2G/3G/4G wireless modem products and small-cell base station projects for a number of leading cellular equipment vendors. At TTP Peter has worked with a wide range of clients in the satellite and cellular communication domains, specialising in end-to-end system engineering, modem system development and advising on commercial aspects. Currently Peter is the TTP technical lead for 5G/6G activities and represents the company in range of industry bodies including 3GPP and UKTIN.

Peter Topham - Principal Engineer, Qualcomm Technologies International

Peter has more than 30 years experience of RF and high-speed circuit design, taking chips into production ranging from FM Band II through cellular, Bluetooth and on to UWB at 10GHz. He has been with Qualcomm for 7 years, specialising in low-power RF design for portable and wearable products.