Colm Browning graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2009 with an honours degree in electronic engineering (BAI) and a minor in Mathematics (BA).

He was awarded a Science Foundation Ireland Starting Investigator Research Grant in 2019 for ‘Flexible Photonic Network Convergence Enabling Future Mobile Communications’ (COMPhLEX).

He completed his PhD, entitled ‘Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing for Next Generation Optical Networks’, in September 2013, in the Radio and Optical Communications Lab at Dublin City University.

Colm continued to work with the group as a post-doctoral researcher focussing on the use of advanced modulation formats in future optical networks under the Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research (CTVR). In 2014 Colm was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to undertake research in Columbia University, New York City to investigate the use of fast tunable lasers in dynamic amplified optical networks.

Over the course of 2015, Colm took time off to travel around the world. He rejoined the Radio and Optical Communications Laboratory in DCU to work on a US-Ireland collaborative project; Agile cloud service delivery using integrated photonic networking, which examines the use of reconfigurable optical networks in data centre environments. This project is undertaken with partners in Columbia University, University of Arizona, University of California San Diego, Caltech, University of California Berkeley, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin and the University of Ulster (Coleraine).