Xiaoyi Bao is the Canada Research Chair professor (Tier I) in Fiber Optics and Photonics in the physics department at he University of Ottawa. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), of the Optical Society of America (OSA), and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). She recently received the Governor General Innovation Award (2021).


Her research interests include the study of nonlinear and quantum effects in optical fibres for sensing, low noise fibre lasers, data storage, secret key generation and distribution, all-optical signal processing, fabrication of micro- and nano-fibres as integrated fibre devices, development of fibre optics sensors, distributed fibre sensors for structural health monitoring and non-destructive testing.