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Honoring the 2024 Bell Labs Fellows

by Peter Vetter , Thierry E. Klein
20 Nov 2024
NBL Fellows with GLTs and NBL presidents

The Nokia Bell Labs Fellow Award is our company’s highest lifetime achievement award for research and development. This extraordinary 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. It is reserved only 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.

It is also one of the longest running fellowship programs in the industry. Since its inception in 1982, only 352 people have received this esteemed honor. There are currently 83 such active recipients among the Nokia R&D community.

The newest five Bell Labs Fellows were recognized on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at a ceremony we hosted in Lisbon, Portugal, 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:

Henrik Liljeström from Mobile Networks, Espoo, Finland:

For the past 24 years, Henrik has worked in various technical leadership and expert positions shaping Nokia RAN product solutions across various generations – from 3G to 6G. A recognized technical expert in radio access products and features who has 29 granted patents, he has been cited as a fellow for sustained technical contributions to RAN product competitiveness.

Lasse Laaksonen from Nokia Technologies, Tampere, Finland:

With more than 20 years of professional experience in multimedia R&D and standardization, Lasse’s most important technical contributions are in the areas of low-bitrate speech and audio analysis and coding, pitch estimation and tracking, noise suppression, signal bandwidth extension and high-frequency coding. He is being cited for creating a broad range of technologies for high-quality speech and audio coding and successful contributions to key standards in 3GPP and ITU-T.

Luca Razzetti from Network Infrastructure, Vimercate, Italy:

Luca has been the lead architect on work that has been the foundation of Nokia’s success in optical coherent communication. A leading expert in information theory and forward error correction (FEC) coding, he is being cited as a fellow for outstanding sustained contribution to the architecture and design of digital coherent ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits).

Benoist Sébire from Nokia Standards, Tokyo, Japan:

Benoist has been a key contributor for 25 years to the design and standardization of radio protocols while representing Nokia in 3GPP. His technical expertise combined with a sustained quest for excellence has had a profound impact on mobile communications and revenue stream for Nokia with over 880 patents granted. He is being cited for sustained contributions to radio access technologies across 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G, and for significantly enhancing Nokia's licensing business.

Alexei Ashikhmin from Bell Labs Solutions Research, Murray Hill, New Jersey:

Alexei has made fundamental contributions to mMIMO systems, having invented pilot communication precoding and using it to construct a multi-cell architecture with a constant intercell communication load and unboundedly growing throughput. A leading researcher in coding theory for more than 25 years, he is being cited for outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of communication sciences, coding theory and quantum error correction.

2024 Bell Labs Fellows certificates

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.

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.