Dr. Haxha received MSc and Ph.D.  from City University in London in 2000 and 2004, respectively.  He was awarded a SIM for his postgraduate research from The Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers. He has an Executive MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School and Mini Telecom MBA.

Currently, he is a Reader at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), Department of Electronic Engineering United Kingdom. He is Director of research, Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) and Director of Postgraduate Researchers (PGR) and Postgraduate Taught (PGT) courses in Electronic Engineering department in Egham. He established the Microwave Photonics and Sensors (MPS) laboratory from scratch and is now head of the MPS group in the Electronic Engineering department.

Prior to this post, he was a lecturer in fibre optic and broadband communication at the School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent, UK, and CEO of Telecom company. 

Dr Haxha has published over 200 research publications, over 100 of them are in leading journals such as IEEE, Optics Express, Applied Optics (OSA), IET, Springer and Elsevier. His research expertise is focused on designing and optimizing, photonic microwave devices, and systems for use in defence, telecommunication and the medical industries.

Dr Haxha's research emphasis is using photonics to robustly pre-process microwave signals in front of microwave receivers. This research focuses on receivers typically uses Commercially Of the Shelf (COTS) components. Dr Haxha is familiar with the merits of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) and  photonic component technology thereby futureproofing such receiver technology.  His skills include the design of Electro-optic Modulators (GaAs, LiNbO3, Polymer...), Plasmonic devices, Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPP), photonic crystal devices, metamaterials, photonic crystal fibres, photonic sensors, biosensors, PICs, including OCDMA, OFDM), and Optical MIMO systems, including RF beam-forming and component design (smart beam-forming antennas). 

He has developed and demonstrated RF over fibre transmission. Dr Haxha has extensive expertise on microwave photonic signal processing, including up conversion and down conversion of microwave signals, developing new techniques for eliminating intermodulation distortions products, removal of spurious, amplification and photonic filtering of RF over fiber optic communication links for future 5G/6G wireless communication, Free-space optical (FSO) communication, beamforming, aerospace, radar and satellite communication system applications. He has expertise on application of Artificial Intelligence in the above stated communication systems.

His microwave photonics research has applications in aviation, space, telecommunication, defence, biological and test industries.

Before choosing the academic life, Dr Haxha has extensive expertise in Telecommunication Management Industry. He was a successful CEO Telecommunication company with multi hundreds of millions of euros in turnover in partnership with Cable & Wireless Communications Ltd,  Monaco Telecom International (MTI). He has been a Keynote Speaker at numerous world-class conferences.

Dr. Haxha has successfully established the new Microwave Photonics and Sensors (MPS) group at Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) in spite of COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Haxha focused his investigations on photonics because of sea-change it can offer in the manipulation of microwave signals, for example:

1. Vastly superior, low distortion, high isolation, local oscillator free up and down conversion are available with microwave photonic mixers.
2. Single sideband readily available
3. Robust microwave high-Quality factor (Q) of 1000’s, highly agile, photonic microwave filters.
4. The combination of 1 to 3 above increases Spurious Free Dynamic Range (SFDR).
5. The use of fibre allows remoteability of microwave function with no loss of microwave signal performance regardless of the size of a platform or microwave frequency.
6. Photonics allows small high resolution simultaneous analysis of multiple Rf signal

Furthermore, Dr Haxha is exploring the above manipulations of signals for use in biological Raman spectroscopy. Additionally, Haxha has developed speckle pattern-based devices for cybersecurity and defence applications along with wearable biosensors.

Dr. Haxha is a  Fellow of IET (FIET), Chartered Engineer (CEng), Senior Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (Senior MIEEE), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Editorial Board Member for MDPI journals, Guest Editor of MDPI Special Issue "Optical Imaging and Biophotonic Sensors (OIBS)" of the open-access journal Biosensors (ISSN 2079-6374) with Impact Factor 5.519, and Associate Editor of IEEE Sensors Journal. Review Editor for Frontiers in Photonics-Terahertz and Microwave Photonics. Dr. Haxha published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals and conferences. He is the author of more than 10 patents. As a Principal Investigator (PI), Dr. Haxha has been awarded research funding for over £1 million from different funders including UKRI, the National Aerospace Technology Programme (NATEP), the Royal Society, charitable trusts, and large industry partners.

•  Google Scholar profile

Some Project Awards as Principal Investigator:

Dr. Haxha has been awarded numerous research project awards such as:

- Photonic Signal Processing to Remove all 5G/6G Band Signals from the Water Signal. Funded by Industry (February 2022-2026)

- Experimental development and demonstration of a multi-RF mixer with high intermodulation suppressions. Funded by Industry (Aprill 2020-December 2020)

- Microwave Photonic Mixer over Optics Communication Channel for 5G and beyond. Funded by Industry (£60K) (January 2019-May 2019)

- National Aerospace Technology Programme (NATEP) funding £280K: Developing New Photonic Architectures using GaAs Modulators.

- The Royal Society International funding £12K in collaboration between the UK and ETRI South Korea on designing of Novel Polymer Electro-optic Modulator. Including several EPSRC studentships.

- Rolls-Royce; Project funding £80K on Biosensor-biofilm development detection based on dual-channel planar waveguide Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) for aqueous environment applications.

- Knowledge Transfer Partnerships - Innovate UK. Project funding £159K: Design of Advanced Emerging Technology Sensor System.

- Nuffield Award funding £5K: Novel Design of Polarization Controller based on GaAs. 

- Received funding of around £200K from the industry on designing Non-Invasive  Glucose Wearable Sensors for Continuous     Monitoring of Glucose Levels in Blood, and novel Microwave Photonic Architecture with improved SFDR.

He is the director of the new MSc in Microwave and Optical Fibre Communications

How to join the MSc in Microwave and Optical Fibre Communications:

To apply for the MSc in Microwave and Optical Fibre Communications, please click on the following link: 

MSc in Microwave and Optical Fibre Communications

or email Dr Shyqyri Haxha at shyqyri.haxha@rhul.ac.uk  with details about your postgraduate study interests.

 He is the author of several patents in the area of photonics, RF over fiber, and sensor devices for health and environmental applications.

Granted Patents:

Title: A DOPPLER COMPENSATION METHOD USING PHOTONIC MODULATION

Inventor: Shyqyri Haxha 

Patent number: PCT Patent Application No. PCT/GB2023/050247 claiming priority from GB2201595.2

Published: August 2023.

Title: A Doppler Compensation Method using Photonic Modulation

Inventor: Shyqyri Haxha

Patent Number: GB2201595.2 

Filing date:  February 2022

Title: Apparatus and Method of Capturing Physiological Data

Inventor: Shyqyri Haxha

Patent number: PCT/GB2022/051873

Published: August 2023

Title: Positional Detection System 

Inventors: Patrick Sullivan; Mohamed Abolkheir, Bristol; Shyqyri Haxha, Paul Hogg,

Patent number: PCT/GB2020/051767

Published: Jan. 20, 2022.

Title: Positional Detection System

Inventors: Patrick Sullivan; Mohamed Abolkheir, Bristol; Shyqyri Haxha, Paul Hogg,

Patent number: US 11,628,349 B2

Published: Aug. 4, 2022.

Title: Positional Detection System

Inventors: Patrick Sullivan; Mohamed Abolkheir, Bristol; Shyqyri Haxha, Paul Hogg,

Patent number: 3,147,719 (Canada)

Published: 15th August 2023

Title: Electro-optical Modulator and Method of Modulating an Optical Beam to Carry an RF Signal

Inventors: Ian Flint, Taimur Mirza and Shyqyri Haxha

Granted Patent Number: US11429007B2

Date: 30 August 2022. 

Patent funded by Leonardo UK LTD.

Title: Apparatus and method for reducing distortion of an optical signal

Inventors: Mohammed Alom, Ian Flint, and Shyqyri Haxha

Granted Patent Number: GB2567646

Filing date:  October 2017.

Joint patent application fully funded by Industry.

Title: An Electro-Optical Modulator

Inventors: Ian Flint, Shyqyri Haxha and Taimur Mirza

Filing date: 24 December 2019

Granted Patent Number: GB2582199

Publication Date: 16 September 2020

Link To File: https://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-ipsum/Case/PublicationNumber/GB2582199

Title: Apparatus and method for reducing distortion of an optical signal

Inventors: Mohammed Alom, Ian Flint and Shyqyri Haxha

Granted Patent Number: US 20200252134 A1

Joint patent application fully funded by Industry.

Title: A Radio Frequency Mixer Implemented with a Photonic Circuit.

 Author(s): Ian Flint, Shyqyri Haxha and Taimur Mirza

Patent Application Number: GB 2000605.2

Filing date: 15 January 2020 (Priority Filing date: 15 January 2019)

Publication Number: GB2580792

Publication Date: 29 July 2020

Joint patent application fully funded by Industry.

Title: A method of driving an MZM, mixer and SSBs post manufacture to trim out intensity errors

 Author(s): Taimur Mirza, Shyqyri Haxha and Ian Flint

 Patent Application Number: GB1821175.5

 Filing date: 24 December 2018

 Joint patent application fully funded by Industry.

Title: A Radio Frequency Mixer Implemented with a Photonic Circuititle: 

Inventors: Ian Flint, Shyqyri Haxha and Taimur Mirza

Patent Application Number: PCT/EP2020/050916

PCT Filing Date: 15 January 20020 (Priority Filing date: 15 January 2019)

Publication Number: WO 2020/148337

Publication Date: 23 July 2020

Title: Metamaterial Microlens Array (MMA) for 3D Imaging Systems

Authors(s): Shyqyri Haxha, Amar Aggoun and Fathi AbdelMalek

Published: May 2014

Patent Application No. 1407922.2

Title: Photonic Crystal Fibre

Author(s): Shyqyri Haxha

Published: 2008 February

Patent Application No. 0802983.7 

Title: Optical Biosensor

Author(s): Shyqyri Haxha, Gary Robinson

Published: 2008 January

Patent Application No. 0801606.5 

Title: Optical External Modulator 

Author(s): Shyqyri Haxha, Terry Gorman

Published: 2007 September

Patent Application No. 0717240.6