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Dr Zhihua Lai obtained his PhD on Wireless Propagation Modelling at University of Bedfordshire in June, 2010 (aged 25). He obtained his first computer when he was aged 13. At that time, he was addicted to DOS, Logo, and Foxbase 2.1 but, after he was given a book on 'Pascal', he fell in love with programming.

In high school, he participated in Information Olympic competitions and won the national third prize twice.

In 2002, Zhihua spent a happy year at the International College in Beijing. This year of study boosted his computing knowledge.

For his second and third years of bachelor studies he relocated to the UK, and completed his BSc with First Class (GPA 15.5125 out of 16, the highest grade of the year) in Computer Science (September 2006) at the University of Bedfordshire.

When he was aged 22, Zhihua was offered the opportunity to start a PhD with a fee-waiver studentship. For the first 7 months, his research project title was "Grid-enabled Optimisation Algorithms for Network Planning". However, he turned his research interests into wireless propagation algorithms. Thanks to various studentships, he has been given more time to concentrate on research. In 2009, he continued research in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he developed parallel propagation algorithms in a distributed grid environment. In 2010, he undertook a project with T-mobile UK while he continued the research and improvement of the radiowave propagation model for indoor to outdoor scenarios. During the three years of research, Zhihua also taken a programming role in many European projects. From January to April 2007, he was involved in a medical project (LHDL) when he developed and implemented webservice-based 3D visualisation for medical purposes. Later 2008, he was involved in developing an enhanced knowledge searching engine. From March 2006 to December 2007, he was working part-time in Refriendz Ltd as a software engineer. He was responsible for technical operations, which involves managing web server, maintaining database, optimising SQL queries, developing new functions, and ensuring overall system efficiency. Skills involved are PHP, MySql, Smarty, Fusebox, Javascript, Css, DHTML, and Memcached. In December 2010, he was employed as a development manager for a university (University of Bedfordshire) project (orda.beds.ac.uk), which aims developing an online web application for new research students for the oncoming year. The collaboration between he and the development team had been an amazing experience that they accomplished the target within less than two weeks. The knowledge and experience he obtained from university has been so wonderful that during his PhD research, he successfully undertook several other projects such as creation of websites for www.ranplan.com and www.chinglandtravel.com in 2007.

His propagation model 'IRLA' has been cited in the book "Femtocells - Technologies and Deployment", Wiley, January 2010 by Professor Jie Zhang and Dr Guillaume De La Roche.

Dr Lai loves programming. He thinks every good program should be a piece of art. He has been an active Pascal programmer for more than 10 years. He is also a Linux C++ and Assembly programmer. Programming has greatly changed his life, e.g. he usually decomposes things into binary codes. He says: "Programming is the fundamental skill to do research, especially for subjects on computer science or engineering." However, he is usually considered a programmer rather than a researcher.

Currently, Dr Lai continues the research in fast and accurate propagation models for wireless network planning and optimisation. Till now, he has managed to develop more than 400 thousands lines of code and 2000 APIs(excluding comment and empty lines, which consists of mixed Pascal, C++, Assembly and VB/JScript) for the state-of-the-art wireless propagation tools/engines. He is now dedicated to developing the 64-bit simulation engine and maintaining the tools.

Dr Zhihua Lai finished BSc (Honours, First Class) and Ph.D. in University of Bedfordshire in 2006 and 2010 respectively. He was also a visiting scholar at GRID and Ubiquitous Computing Group, University of Applied Sciences of Fribourg, Switzerland in 2009 where he developed parallel propagation algorithms in a distributed grid environment. His main research interests include radiowave propagation modelling and distrbuted/parallel algorithms. He has published over 20 papers and has been involved in a number of funded European projects in these areas. He joined Ranplan Wireless Network Design Ltd, UK in Sept 2010 as a senior research fellow and he develops and maintains cutting-edge propagation models for wireless network planning and optimization. His propagation model has been cited in the book "Femtocells - Technologies and Deployment", Wiley, January 2010 by Professor Jie Zhang and Dr Guillaume De La Roche. Dr Lai loves programming. He thinks every good program should be a piece of art. He has been an active Pascal programmer for more than 10 years. He is also a Linux C++ and Assembly programmer. Programming has greatly changed his life, e.g. he usually decomposes things into binary codes. He says: "Programming is the fundamental skill to do research, especially for subjects on computer science or engineering." However, he is usually considered a programmer rather than a researcher.

Zhihua Lai (Head of Radio Propagation Team @ Ranplan) finished BSc (Honours, First Class in Computer Science) and Ph.D. (Wireless Propagation Modelling) in University of Bedfordshire in 2006 and 2010 respectively. He was also a visiting scholar at GRID and Ubiquitous Computing Group, University of Applied Sciences of Fribourg, Switzerland in 2009 where he developed parallel propagation algorithms in a distributed grid environment. His main research interests include radiowave propagation modelling and distrbuted/parallel algorithms. He has published over 20 papers and has been involved in a number of funded European projects in these areas. He joined Ranplan Wireless Network Design Ltd, UK in Sept 2010 as a Senior Research Fellow and he develops and maintains cutting-edge propagation engine for wireless network planning and optimization. In Jan 2013, Dr Lai was promoted to the Head of Radio Propagation Team. His propagation model has been cited in the book "Femtocells - Technologies and Deployment", Wiley. Dr Lai loves programming. He has been an active Pascal programmer for more than 10 years. He is also a Linux C++ and Assembly programmer. Currently, Dr Lai continues the research in fast and accurate propagation models for wireless network planning and optimisation. Till now, he has managed to develop more than 400 thousands lines of code and 2000 APIs (excluding comment and empty lines, which consists of mixed Pascal, C++, Assembly and VB/JScript) for the state-of-the-art wireless propagation tools/engines. He is now dedicated to developing the 64-bit simulation engine and maintaining the tools.