Professor Mark Shtaif is a communications scientist working mostly in the field of fiber optics and optical communication systems. Within this general area of activity he integrates the fields of optics, quantum theory, nonlinear systems, communications theory, information theory, and signal processing.
Over the years he has contributed to a variety of topics including optical amplification, analysis of nonlinear propagation, polarization-related phenomena, analyses of noise and signal detection, quantum information in fiber systems, and fundamental limits to optical communications.
In his most notable recent work he has contributed to the analysis of polarization-dependent loss in fiber communications, to the nonlinear-noise model in fiber-optic transmission, to the theory of space-division multiplexed communications, and to effective phase reconstruction by means of the Kramers-Kronig receiver.