Portrait of Zhihua Lai

Zhihua Lai

Senior Software Engineer (PhD)

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About

Hello!

I am currently a Senior Software Engineer in Azure for Operators (opens in new tab) (Cambridge, UK).

My research interests are Computer Algorithms (e.g. Cloud, Blockchain), Wireless Propagation/Channel Modelling and Open RAN. I have quite a few patents (opens in new tab) on intelligent radiowave propagation algorithms (ray tracing/launching).

In 2006, I completed my BSc (Hons, First Class, 3 A+ and 5 A’s) in Computer Science in University of Bedfordshire (opens in new tab). And then with a Fee Waiver Scholarship I started pursuing my PhD research under the supervision of Professor Nik Bessis (opens in new tab).

In 2009, I was awarded the Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Scholarship. I joined EIA-FR Grid Group (opens in new tab), GRID and Ubiquitous Computing Group, University of Applied Sciences of Fribourg, Switzerland (Ecole d’ingénieurs et d’architectes de Fribourg) as a Research Associate (Visiting Scholar). During the stay there, I developed parallel and distributed radiowave propagation algorithms via POP-C+ (opens in new tab) (Parallel Object Oriented Programming C++).

And at the age of 25, I obtained my doctorate degree at Wireless Propagation Modelling University of Bedfordshire (opens in new tab). My thesis is “The development of an intelligent ray launching algorithm for wireless network planning”.

Upon PhD Completion (opens in new tab), I worked for a cambridge wireless startup software company where I have designed and implemented the cutting-edge Intelligent Radiowave Propagation Engine that was pushed to its limits by using Win32 inline Assembly in the core. See this journal paper: Intelligent Ray Launching Algorithm for Indoor Scenarios – Radioengineering, Volume 20, Number 2, 2011, ISSN: 1210-2512, p.p.:398-408 (opens in new tab).

From 2013 to 2015, I joined University of Sheffield (Electronic and Electrical Engineering Group) (opens in new tab) as a Marie Curie Experienced Researcher (Post-doc) where I worked on the software tools (e.g. high frequency ray tracing tools) for wireless and energy efficient buildings (opens in new tab).

In 2018, I joined General Electric (GE Smallworld) where I have added the _while loop, regular expression, http library, jwt APIs and many other features to the Magik compiler (opens in new tab).

In 2020, I joined Amazon (AWS) where I have contributed to development of several large scale distributed applications in the domain of AWS (Amazon Web Services). I have worked from Day 1 at S3 Object Lambda (opens in new tab) and witnessed the successful launch of it (18/March/2021).

During my high school Xiamen University Affiliated Keji High School, I have won the third prize on NOI (2002) (opens in new tab) programming contest i.e. National Olympic Informatics and NOI (2001-Fujian District) (opens in new tab) in 2002 and 2001 respectively.

Publication

I published a few conference and journal papers (opens in new tab) on Radiowave Propagation Modelling (opens in new tab).

View my publications at Google Scholar (opens in new tab) and ORCID 0009-0005-6429-7194 (opens in new tab).

Here are the publications since I joined Microsoft.

Some interesting stuffs that worth mentioning

At my spare time, I teach my sons and wife programming and here is my youtube channel (opens in new tab) and list of videos (opens in new tab).

Currently, I am a top witness (aka Block Producer) of the Steem Blockchain (opens in new tab). I am beknown for the contributions (infrastructure, tools, API and services) to the Steem Blockchain.

I am on Linkedin (opens in new tab) and I enjoy sharing my knowledge/thoughts by blogging this (opens in new tab) and this (opens in new tab).

I develop and maintain online tools/APIs for fun such as Weibo API (opens in new tab), VPS Database (opens in new tab) and File Merger (opens in new tab).

My favorite programming language is VBScript (opens in new tab) and my favorite cipher algorithm is rot47 (opens in new tab).

You can view my latest updates at zhihua-lai.com (opens in new tab) and 博客 Personal Blog (opens in new tab).