Oluwaseun (Sean) Alo

I am Oluwaseun (Sean) Alo, a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Kentucky (expected May 2026), conducting research at the Unconventional Computing Architectures and Technologies (UCAT) Laboratory. My work lies at the intersection of photonic computing, hardware acceleration, and energy-efficient architectures for machine learning.

Currently, I am designing scalable tensor processing architectures leveraging photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for energy-efficient deep learning inference. My research includes building optical and electronic test benches for device characterization, conducting Ferromagnetic Resonance (FMR) experiments for spintronic material analysis, and modeling photonic devices in Lumerical and Cadence for system-level optimization. I focus on device-circuit-architecture co-design to achieve significant throughput improvements—achieving 3.2× performance gains—while reducing power consumption.

Before my Ph.D., I worked at Huawei Technologies Nigeria Co. Ltd for 5 years, where I led optical and wireless network infrastructure projects, focusing on optical transmission systems, hardware evaluation, and large-scale system integration across 150+ sites.

My professional and research experiences bridge photonic integrated circuits, optical systems, hardware design, and ML accelerators, motivating my pursuit of next-generation photonic computing solutions for AI and high-performance computing applications.

🎓 Education

Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY (Aug 2022 – May 2026, Expected) 🎯
M.Sc. in Electrical/Electronic Engineering
B.Eng. in Electrical/Electronic Engineering

📜 Certifications & Training

AIM Photonics Packaging Workshop, American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (Feb 2026) ✨
Advanced training in photonic integrated circuit packaging, co-packaged optics (CPO), fiber-to-chip coupling, thermal management, and commercial deployment techniques

💼 Professional Experience

Graduate Researcher – UCAT Lab, University of Kentucky 🔬

Aug 2022 – Present

Built optical and electronic test benches to evaluate photonic integrated circuits (PICs), performing optical alignment with submicron precision, laser-fiber coupling optimization, and automated signal-response measurements using tunable laser sources and high-speed photodetectors
Developed scalable tensor processing architectures leveraging analog photonic computing, achieving 3.2× throughput improvement and 40% reduction in electronic control overhead through optimized dataflow and device-circuit co-design
Set up Ferromagnetic Resonance (FMR) test benches integrating microwave sources (up to 20 GHz), vector network analyzers, electromagnets with automated field control, and data acquisition to characterize thin-film magnetic heterostructures
Modeled device-level performance of microring resonators (MRRs) and Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) in Lumerical INTERCONNECT, analyzing impact of fabrication variations, optical loss (<0.5 dB/cm), and thermal crosstalk on system-level accuracy
Published 4 peer-reviewed papers in IEEE and ACM venues on photonic accelerators, stochastic computing, and GEMM optimization for neural networks

Lead Project Engineer – Huawei Technologies Nigeria Co. Ltd 📡

Jan 2020 – Aug 2022

Led technical delivery of 70+ optical and wireless network infrastructure projects valued at $50M+, making architecture decisions for optical fiber networks, microwave backhaul, and multi-band radio access deployments
Evaluated and selected critical hardware components including optical amplifiers (EDFA), wavelength-selective switches (WSS), and coherent transceivers, ensuring 15–20% energy efficiency improvements through optimized optical power management
Managed cross-functional engineering teams across 8–12 concurrent deployments, reducing commissioning timelines by 20% through systematic workflow optimization

Commission Engineer – Huawei Technologies Nigeria Co. Ltd 🛠️

Sep 2017 – Dec 2019

Commissioned 80+ 4G/LTE base stations and optical transmission systems, performing hardware validation, RF drive testing, and optical link verification using OTDRs, achieving 99%+ first-time acceptance rate
Conducted field-level testing of optical transceivers (10G/100G DWDM) and baseband units through systematic measurement including optical power budgets, fiber loss characterization, and dispersion analysis
Optimized network coverage across 300+ square kilometers by analyzing signal quality metrics, improving cell-edge throughput by 30% and reducing call drop rates by 25%

🔬 Research Interests

🔆 Photonic Integrated Circuits & Silicon Photonics
🚀 Hardware Accelerators for Machine Learning
⚡ Energy-Efficient and Scalable Computing Architectures
🔗 Optical Interconnects & Co-Packaged Optics
🎯 Device-Circuit-Architecture Co-Design
🧠 Neuromorphic and Analog Computing Systems

🚀 Selected Projects

Photonic Tensor Processing Architecture (Dissertation Research, Ongoing) 🎯

Designing scalable photonic tensor cores using MZI meshes and MRR weight banks for energy-efficient deep learning inference. Achieved 3.2× throughput improvement through custom dataflow optimization. Modeling device performance in Lumerical and Cadence, co-designing photonic circuits with CMOS electronics for 8-bit integer operations. Building optical test bench for characterizing fabricated MRR-based circuits.
Tools: Lumerical, Cadence, Python, MATLAB

SPOGA: Scalable Photonic GEMM Accelerator 📊

Architected low-power analog photonic accelerator for INT8 matrix multiplication. Implemented novel encoding scheme reducing optical modulation energy by 35%. Performed device-circuit-architecture co-simulation analyzing MRR fabrication variations (±5 nm tolerance), optical loss, and crosstalk effects.
Published at IEEE ISVLSI 2024 📄
Tools: Lumerical, Python, PyTorch

ASTRA: Optical Stochastic Computing Accelerator ⚡

Contributed to silicon photonic transformer accelerator design. Analyzed energy-accuracy tradeoffs for stochastic bit-stream generation using integrated MZ modulators and optical MAC operations. Demonstrated 2.5× speedup for LLM inference.
Published in ACM TECS 2024 📄
Tools: Python, Lumerical, TensorFlow

Ferromagnetic Resonance (FMR) Characterization (Ongoing) 🧲

Conducting FMR-based material characterization of thin-film magnetic heterostructures. Analyzing damping, anisotropy, and resonance properties to guide hybrid spintronic-photonic computing designs and device modeling for next-generation accelerators.
Tools: VNA, electromagnets, Python automation

📚 Selected Publications

I. Thakkar, S. S. Vatsavai, V. S. P. Karempudi, and O. A. Alo.
Scaling Up the Sustainability of Photonic Tensor Cores with Device-Circuit-Signaling Co-Design
IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2025, Dallas, TX, USA.
S. Afifi, O. A. Alo, I. Thakkar, and S. Pasricha.
ASTRA: A Stochastic Transformer Neural Network Accelerator with Silicon Photonics
ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS), 2024.
S. Afifi, O. A. Alo, I. Thakkar, and S. Pasricha.
A Light-Speed Large Language Model Accelerator with Optical Stochastic Computing
ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI (GLSVLSI), 2025, pp. 922–928.
O. A. Alo, S. S. Vatsavai, and I. Thakkar.
Scaling Analog Photonic Accelerators for Byte-Size, Integer GEMM Kernels
IEEE International Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI), 2024, Knoxville, TN, USA.
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISVLSI61997.2024.00080
O. A. Alo and A. R. Zubair.
Content-Based Image Retrieval System Using Second-Order Statistics
International Journal of Computer Applications (IJCA), 2020.
https://doi.org/10.5120/ijca2020920475

Full publication list: Google Scholar

🛠 Technical Skills

Hardware Design & Simulation: Lumerical (INTERCONNECT, MODE, FDTD), Cadence Virtuoso (schematic, layout, DRC, LVS), SystemVerilog, Verilog, Silicon photonics device modeling, Analog/mixed-signal circuit design

Photonics Packaging & Integration: Co-packaged optics (CPO), Fiber-to-chip coupling, Package-level thermal management, PIC assembly techniques, Industry-standard packaging workflows

Experimental & Characterization: Optical alignment, Laser-fiber coupling, Photodetector characterization, OTDR, Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), Spectrum analyzers, Optical spectrum analyzers (OSA), FMR test benches, S-parameter measurements (up to 20 GHz), Python automation (GPIB/SCPI control)

Programming & Software: Python, C++, MATLAB, Git, Linux/Bash

ML Frameworks & Tools: PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-learn

Architecture & Analysis: Dataflow optimization, Energy-performance modeling, Throughput-latency analysis, Hardware-algorithm co-design, Quantization-aware architectures, Tensor core and photonic computing system simulation

📫 Contact

Email: oluwaseunalo@gmail.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/seunalo
GitHub: github.com/snalo
Work Authorization: U.S. Permanent Resident/Green Card Holder 🇺🇸

🎯 Current Status

Actively seeking opportunities in:

🔆 Photonic integrated circuit design and validation
🚀 Hardware accelerator development for AI/ML
📡 Optical systems engineering
🔬 Research and development in emerging computing architectures

Available: May 2026 (post-PhD defense) for full-time positions

📄 Download Resume (PDF)

Last updated: March 2026