Peter O'Reilly

Teaching Professor,  Multidisciplinary Graduate Engineering Programs
Director of Cyber Physical Systems & Telecommunication Networks,  Multidisciplinary Graduate Engineering Programs

Contact

Office

  • 507 DA
  • 617.373.5424

About

Peter O’Reilly holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (June 1983), and M.S. degrees in Applied Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech (1983) and Colorado State University (1971), respectively. He received his B.E. degree in electrical engineering from University College Dublin in 1969.

From 1983 to 2001, Dr O’Reilly worked at GTE Laboratories and Verizon Technology, where he was a Member of Technical Staff, Department Manager and Director, responsible for carrying out and directing R&D in different areas of telecommunications technology, architecture and services. He joined Northeastern University as a Program Director in 2002 to develop and lead a new MS program in telecommunications, and later, a MS program in cyber-physical systems. He is currently a Teaching Professor in the Multidisciplinary Graduate Engineering department at Northeastern University.

Dr O’Reilly has published over 30 referred technical papers, as well as a textbook on local area networks (published by Addison-Wesley). He is a former Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Network, has been a technical editor of both the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking and IEEE Network, and served as a guest editor of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications on Circuit Switching for Broadband ISDN and Beyond. He is a Life Senior Member of the IEEE.

Education

Peter O’Reilly was born in Dublin, Ireland. He received the BE in Electrical Engineering (First Hons) from University College Dublin, the MS in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University and the MS in Applied Mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was awarded the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1983.

Dr O’Reilly has been Director of the Telecommunication Networks program at Northeastern University since the program was initiated in 2002.

From 1983 through 2001, Dr. O’Reilly was at GTE Laboratories and Verizon Communications in Waltham, Mass. During that period he held a number of technical and management positions including Member of Technical Staff, Department Manager and Director. While at GTE and at Verizon, he initiated, directed and carried out research in many different areas of telecommunications technology, networks, architecture and services. He also program managed a number of large software development projects that spanned multiple locations and organizational entities. Two of his projects won Warner Awards, GTE’s highest technical award.

Dr O’Reilly had prior teaching experience in networks, communications and electronics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Higher Institute of Electronics (Malta), Letterkenny Regional Technical College (Ireland) and Colorado State University.

Dr O’Reilly is a Senior Technical Editor of IEEE Network, having previously been a member of the editorial board (since 1992) and Editor-in-Chief (2000 to 2003). Previously, he served as a Technical Editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 1992–98, and was a Guest Editor for an issue of IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications on “Circuit Switching for Broadband ISDN and Beyond,” February 1996.

He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of the ACM and Sigma Xi.

Selected Publications

  • Performance Analysis of Local Computer Networks (with J.L. Hammond), Addison-Wesley, 1986
  • “An Architectural Approach to Minimizing Feature Interactions in Telecommunications” (with I. Zibman et al), IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking, Aug. 1996.
  • “Routing of Voice and Data in Burst-Switched Networks” (with B. Maglaris et al), IEEE Trans. on Communications, June 1990.
  • “Conceptual Issues for ATM” (with J. Gechter), IEEE Network, Jan. 1989.
  • “Implications of Very Wide Fiber Bandwidth for Network Architecture,” Fiber and Integrated Optics, 1988.
  • “Data Performance in Burst Switching when the Silence Periods have a Hyperexponential Distribution” (with S. Ghani), IEEE Transactions on Communications, Oct. 1987.
  • “Burst and Fast Packet Switching: Performance Comparisons,” Computer Networks & ISDN Systems, 1987.
  • “Data Performance in Burst Switching,” IEEE Trans. on Communications, Dec. 1986.
  • “An Efficient Simulation Technique for Performance Studies of CSMA/CD Local Networks” (with J.L. Hammond), IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Jan. 1984.

Faculty

Feb 01, 2024

Faculty and Staff Awards 2024

The College of Engineering recognized faculty and staff at the annual faculty and staff awards event and thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication in support of our students, college, and university during the 2023-2024 academic year. View award recipients and photo gallery.

Spotlight Story

Nov 28, 2022

A Confidence Boost To Succeed in the Telecommunications Industry

Varun Sachdev, MS’09, chose Northeastern to pursue a master’s in telecommunication networks because of its focus on industry experiences to complement the academic program. He focused on areas including 4G LTE, multimedia, and advanced networking, and well as management. He did a co-op at Qualcomm in San Diego.

MS

Oct 26, 2022

Securing Mobile Networks 4G to 5G and Beyond

Apoorva Jain, an alumnus of the MS in telecommunication networks program, gained valuable experience on an eight-month co-op at telecommunications company Ericsson, working on the systems integration team. Upon graduation he received a full time position at Ericsson in product development and validation. Now Jain is a senior product manager in cloud and network security at Palo Alto Networks.

student portrait

Spotlight Story

May 17, 2021

Cyber-Physical Systems Experience for the Connected World

Aurobindo Samantaray, MS’21, cyber-physical systems, joined the Northeastern community in January 2020. He came to Northeastern for its co-op program, bringing with him professional experience in embedded systems by working with large companies in the automotive industry—build automation. Samantaray worked on various software and products that have lifesaving capabilities such as airbags and occupant classification […]

Staff

May 05, 2015

COE Faculty and Staff Award Winners

Congratulations to the 2015 winners of the COE Faculty and Staff Awards: Outstanding Teachers of First Year Engineering Students Thomas Gilbert, Chemistry Joshua Hertz, Engineering Marco Rainho, Mathematics Swastik Kar, Physics Martin W. Essigmann Outstanding Teaching Award Marvin Onabajo, ECE Outstanding Cooperative Education Coordinator Award Alison Nogueira, MIE Outstanding Staff Award Roy Dalsheim, Student Services Susan […]

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