Robert Halir carried out his PhD research in the framework of a prestigious national scholarship, which enabled extended visits at and collaborative research with the Canadian National Research Council, Ghent University and Cornell University. He received his PhD with highest honors in 2010 and worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the European Mirthe project. Since 2011 he has also been associated with the Andalusian Institute for Nanomedicine and Biotechnology (Bionand). In 2012 he became Assistant Professor at the Department of Communications Engineering at the University of Málaga. Since 2019 he has been a Tenured Associate Professor. He has co-authored more than 140 journal and conference papers, and holds six patents. He has been teaching full time for seven years, totaling more than 1200 hours of lectures in six different subjects in bachelor and master’s degrees. He has supervised a dozen bachelor theses, four master theses and four PhD students in the fields of silicon nanophotonic structures and biophotonic sensors.