Prof. John Canning is with the School of Computing and Communications, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), and is an Honorary Professor in the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney, and an adjunct professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of NSW. He has cofounded several companies and is a Fellow of SPIE and OSA and has published more than 700 peer reviewed journal and conference papers. In 2017, he received the 2017 David Richardson Medal from OSA.

Interests include research student mentoring, methodology, science, photonics, photonic sensing, photonic devices and the photonic IoT, materials, material and interface physics and chemistry, surface plasmons, smart materials, smart sensing, smart device instrumentation, lasers, optical fibres and waveguides, organic photonics, new technologies and applications of technology.