Dimitra Simeonidou | Director Smart Internet Lab
University of Bristol

Prof. Dimitra Simeonidou OBE: is the Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission, the Director of Smart Internet Lab at the University of Bristol and the Founding Director of the Bristol Digital Futures Institute. Her research is focusing on the fields of high-performance networks, programmable networks, Future Internet, 5G/6G and smart city infrastructures. She has been the Technical Architect, and the CTO of the smart city project Bristol Is Open. In the past few years, she is increasingly working on cross-disciplinary topics addressing digital transformation for society and businesses.    Dimitra has been a member of the UK Government Supply Chain Diversification Task Force and Advisory Council. She is a founding member of the UK Telecoms Innovation Network and member of the OFCOM Spectrum Advisory Board. She has led major research projects funded by UK Government and the EC. She is currently coordinating the DSIT REASON project developing blueprint architectures and technologies for 6G and the EPSRC JOINER project, establishing a UK-wide experimentation platform for 6G research and innovation.    She is the author and co-author of over 700 publications, numerous patents and several contributions to standards. She has been co-founder of three spin-out companies developing solutions for connected smart infrastructures.   Dimitra is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), a Fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE), Fellow of WWRF and member of UKCRC. In 2025 she has been recognised with an OBE for service to communication technologies research and scientific policy.