Faculty

Dr. Benhaddou's areas of expertise include optical networking, sensor networks, switching system design, routing protocols, performance analysis, and optical instrument development for defect recognition of semiconductors. He is an expert in the area of multi-protocol internetworking (SONET, ATM, IP, optical) and also has a solid background in software development with applications in routing/signaling protocols and network simulation.

During his first Ph. D. to the mid 90's his research effort was concentrated on defect recognition for semiconductors using optical instruments and image processing resulting in journal publications and conference proceedings. During his post-doc tenure at the University of Colorado he built a laser scanning tomography (LST) instrument to investigate defects in Lithium Niobate. He was working on a project funded in part by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the United States Missile Command in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Research Administration (DARPA). Recently, he started collaborative efforts with Dr. Abdelhak Bensaoula at the TcSAM center to implement laser scanning tomography and phase stepping microscope to investigate defects in III-Nitride materials. This effort resulted in submitting two proposals to NSF and DoD.

Recently, Dr. Benhaddou's area of research focused more on optical networking and optical switching design resulting in a second Ph. D. from the University of Missouri. During his earlier tenure at Sprint, Dr. Benhaddou implemented an extensive broadband test-bed for vendor equipment certification and research/development activities. This experience gave him detailed practical knowledge about the deployment, operation, and interoperability of differing network technologies. Additionally, he also helped develop hierarchical PNNI routing solutions for ATM networks along with interconnection strategies for packet-over-SONET networks.

Subsequently, Dr. Benhaddou was a senior technical staff member at Lambda Optical Systems Inc, where he played a key role in protocol development and systems integration activities. In particular, he was leading system integration for an OSPF routing and signaling implementation for GMPLS-based optical domains and proposed various protocol extensions. Additionally, Dr. Benhaddou headed system test/integration activities for the Advanced Technology Demonstration Network (ATDNet) test-bed project and worked closely with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences (LTS) at the National Security Agency (NSA). Overall, this comprehensive background has given Dr. Benhaddou a solid understanding of many of the theoretical and practical aspects of optical network and protocol design/deployment.

Dr. Benhaddou is spearheading the development of a new state-of-the-art networking research laboratory within the department using a start up and GEAR grants from UH. His work is also supported by Sprint and SBC grants.

In addition, he is actively involved in research in education where he is developing remote laboratories for optical circuits in collaboration with Dr. Deniz Gurkan and Prof. Alan Mickelson at the University of Colorado. His work was recently supported by an FDIP grant for Fall 2005, the International Society for Optical Engineering grant, and NSF (DUE-0536823).