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Honoring the 2023 Bell Labs Fellows

by Thierry E. Klein , Peter Vetter
29 Nov 2023
2023 Nokia Bell Labs Fellows

The Nokia Bell Labs Fellow Award represents the highest lifetime achievement award for research and development at Nokia. This singular honor is a unique designation that caps a career of accomplishment in the technical community.

Only a small number of employees are selected each year and it is reserved for individuals who, over the span of their careers, have made outstanding and sustained contributions to Nokia’s technology leadership and the communications industry at large.

Since the program’s inception in 1982, only 347 people have received this esteemed honor. There are currently 93 such active recipients among the Nokia R&D community.

The newest six Bell Labs Fellows were recognized on Tuesday, Nov. 28 at a ceremony we hosted in Finland, and which was attended by Nokia’s CEO and our global executive leadership. The Fellows were introduced by their nominators, and each was presented with a personal plaque and a on​e-time monetary award.

We are excited to share that the newest Bell Labs Fellows are:

Emre B. Aksu from Nokia Technologies, Tampere, Finland:

Emre heads the Immersive Video Systems Research team at Nokia Technologies and is the technical lead of Real-time Extended Reality Multimedia (RXRM) product incubation. He holds 47 granted patents, has co-authored or supervised 37 publications and has won the Nokia Top Inventor Award several times. He has been cited as a fellow for research and development of innovative multimedia systems technologies and contributions to global multimedia standards.

Randeep Bhatia from Bell Labs Core Research, Murray Hill, New Jersey:

Randeep is well recognized for research focusing on solving real-world networking systems problems, including those related to Software Defined Networking (SDN) and its application in Industry 4.0 and private wireless settings. The author of over 40 patent filings and over 50 research publications, he has been cited as a fellow for outstanding contributions to the design and analysis of systems and algorithms for high performance networks with broad industry impact.

Mika Forssell from Mobile Networks, Espoo, Finland:

Mika is responsible for Base Station product architecture and has held various positions in Nokia Research Center, Global Services, Mobile Broadband and Mobile Networks business groups during his 28 years at Nokia. The owner of 444 granted patents, he has been cited for exemplary technical contributions and industry-defining wireless innovations in developing leading edge radio access products.

Peter Kim from Cloud & Network Services, Munich, Germany:

Peter is considered “the father” of Nokia’s IMS, whose primary goal is to provide carrier-grade voice and multi-media communications over packet-networks. He is credited with growing IMS significantly faster than the market and establishing it as a dominant player. A prominent voice for Nokia at prestigious events like MWC, he has been cited for sustained innovations and leadership in developing and establishing Nokia Converged Core IMS as a market leader.

Sari Nielsen from Nokia Standards, Espoo, Finland:

Sari is immersed in specification of spectrum shaping and harmonization of 3GPP and Indian 5Gi standardization proposals and has critically contributed to LTE carrier aggregation. The owner of several standard essential patents, she has been cited for sustained contributions and industry leadership in radio access standardization for 3G, 4G and 5G systems.

Robert L. Willett from Bell Labs Solutions Research, Murray Hill, New Jersey:

Bob has led experimental studies that demonstrated the first known physical system that can be used for topological quantum computing - a revolutionary technology that could solve intractable human-needs problems. A 35-year veteran of Bell Labs, he has been cited for seminal scientific discoveries in 2D electron systems and pioneering application of these effects toward the realization of fault-tolerant topological quantum computing.

Thierry E. Klein

About Thierry E. Klein

Thierry E. Klein is the President of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia Bell Labs. His global multi-disciplinary team conducts fundamental and applied research focused on new Nokia value chains, business opportunities and ecosystems. Bell Labs Solutions Research pursues research and innovation into advanced technologies, architectures, systems and applications beyond Nokia’s current product and solutions portfolio, including research into advanced sensing technologies, AI-based knowledge systems and fundamental algorithms, autonomous software and data systems, and integrated solutions and experiences.

Prior to his appointment as President of Bell Labs Solutions Research, Thierry was the Head of the Integrated Solutions and Experiences Research Lab at Nokia Bell Labs, leading a global research team dedicated to applied research, innovation and advanced technologies with the mission to design, develop and prototype massively disruptive solutions, systems and experiences for the next human-industrial revolution. The research domains span new wearable devices, cloud robotics and drones, image and data analytics, industrial process optimization and automation enabled by 5G networking and edge computing technologies.

Previously, he was the Head of Innovation Management for Vertical Industries with a focus on the transportation, automotive and connected industries sectors. He also served as the Founding Vice-Chair of the Board of the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), a cross-industry association bringing together the telecommunications and automotive industries that he helped found and launch in September 2016. He was also the Program Leader for the Network Energy Research Program at Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent with the mission to conduct research towards the design, development and use of sustainable future communications and data networks. He served as the Chairman of the Technical Committee of GreenTouch, a global consortium dedicated to improve energy efficiency in networks by a factor 1000x compared to 2010 levels.

He joined Bell Labs Research in Murray Hill, New Jersey in 2001 and his initial research was focused on next-generation wireless and wireline networks, network architectures, algorithms and protocols, network management, optimization and control. From 2006 to 2010 he served as the Founder and CTO of an internal start-up focused on wireless communications for emergency response and disaster recovery situations within Alcatel-Lucent Ventures.

Thierry earned an MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Université de Nantes and the Ecole Centrale de Nantes in Nantes, France. He received a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He is an author on over 35 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications and an inventor on 36 patent applications. He is the recipient of a Bell Labs’ President Award and two Bell Labs Teamwork Awards. In 2010, he was voted “Technologist of the Year” at the Total Telecom World Vendor Awards and received the 2016 Industrial Innovation Award from the IEEE Communications Society.

Thierry has dual US and Luxembourg citizenship and speaks four languages. He lives in Fanwood, New Jersey with his wife and son.

Peter Vetter

About Peter Vetter

Peter Vetter is President of Bell Labs Core Research at Nokia and is leading an eminent global team with the mission to invent game changing innovations that define the future of networks. Bell Labs Core Research is exploring and innovating the key technologies that will prepare Nokia’s core business for the 6G era on a 10-year horizon. That includes foundational research on network architecture, programmable-network systems and security, optical systems and components, mobile radio systems, and platforms and ASICs.

Previously under his leadership the Bell Labs Access & Device Research Lab made some of its most significant discoveries and established new milestones in fixed and wireless communications. Many of those innovations form the backbone of Nokia’s mobile and broadband products today. He was also co-founder of an internal venture that produced the first FTTH product in Alcatel (now part of Nokia) in 2000.

He received the degree of Physics Engineer from Gent University (Belgium) in 1986 and a PhD with Prof. H. Pauwels in 1991. After a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof. T. Uchida at Tohoku University (Japan), he joined the research center of Alcatel (now Nokia) in Antwerp in 1993. Since 2009, he has worked at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, and has been on the senior leadership team of Bell Labs since 2013. He has authored over a hundred international papers and presented keynotes and tutorials at major technical industry events. Peter Vetter is Bell Labs Fellow and IEEE Fellow.