MRSEC Funded SEED Trainees
Lee-Wong, Eric
Eric got his B.S and M.S in Physics from the University of Washington and is now a Nanoengineering PhD at the University of California San Diego. Previous research experience includes studying optoelectronic properties in stacked monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDc) and using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) in diamond magnetometry to study magnetic thin films and novel superconductivity in Fe-Chalcogenide superconductors. He is currently advised by Dr. M. Brian Maple from the physics department and is currently building a custom NV in diamond magnetometry microscope for magnetic imaging of correlated materials at cryogenic temperatures, large magnetic fields up to 9T, and high pressure to study emergent phases and phenomena such as superconductivity, magnetism, and topological insulating states.
Tian, Fanglin
Fanglin is in his 5th year of his Ph.D. program in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research explores the extraordinary phenomena of optical devices by encircling quantum materials & systems and the topological insulators. His current work examines how strong optical nonlinearity and topological photonics can reshape active photonic devices (free space/on-chip) in terms of efficiency and robustness. On a narrower scope, Fanglin's work uses nanometer scale metallic film to realize ultrahigh optical nonlinearity and shows topological phase transition possibility and valley Hall effect in near-infrared regime.
MRSEC Affiliate SEED Trainees
Alhaddadin, Zaid
Zaid(he/they) is a PhD student in electrical engineering at the Poulikakos Lab in UC San Diego. He holds a bachelor's degree in biological sciences and computer science from Purdue University and a master's degree in electrical engineering from UC San Diego. His research focuses on investigating how the geometric symmetry-violations of nanostructures enhance light-matter interactions and how to leverage those effects for a quantifiable, colorimetric detection of fibrotic and misfolded protein disease states.
Byun, Jiuk
Jiuk is an incoming PhD student in Materials Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. She is participating in the SSSiN remotely. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a B.A. in chemistry. Before coming to UC San Diego, she worked as a researcher at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Her research interests include surface chemistry, bio-inspired materials, and photonic materials for medical and environmental applications.
Herman, Luke
Luke is a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego and received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. He is currently working in Prof. Zhaowei Liu's lab to develop novel quantum metamaterials for extreme nonlinear optics.
Kirya, Paula
Paula is an undergraduate Bioengineering major (class of 2023) at UC San Diego. She is currently working in the Poulikakos Lab implementing metasurfaces to quantitatively map biological fiber alignment onto color. Under the McNair fellowship, she explored the application of these metasurfaces for the structural characterization of uniaxially drawn PCL fibers in collaboration with the Pokoroski Lab. Paula will be continuing this research as an IRG2 trainee and exploring the Morpho butterfly as inspiration for a naturally-derived metasurface for optimized colorimetric sensing.
Lerda, Victoria
Victoria is currently working on her MS degree in the Schmidt lab in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego. In 2021, she earned her B.S. in Chemical Sciences from UC Merced. Her research is focused on developing scalable procedures to synthesize bio-sourced polyurethanes through radical-mediated amination strategies.
Ramaprasad, Varun
Varun is a PhD student in the Physics department, working with the group of Dr. Richard D. Averitt. He received his BS-MS dual degrees in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata in 2019. His research here at UC San Diego focuses on exploring novel phenomena in quantum materials using far-infrared (Terahertz) lasers. Working onMRSEC, Varun will be using dynamical THz spectroscopy to study quantum materials and sub-wavelength metamaterials coupled to them with the eventual goal of harnessing fundamental properties of the material with infrared light.
Sun, Yazhi
Yazhi is a second-year NanoEngineering PhD student in Prof. Shaochen Chen’s lab. She received her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering at Peking University and her MPH degree at Yale University. As an IRG2 trainee, She is working on developing novel 3D bioprinted photosynthetic living materials to produce controllable algal bioproducts.
Swank, Chelsea
Chelsea is a PhD student in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at UC San Diego as advised by Prof. Fenning. She received her BS in Chemistry from Pacific Lutheran in Tacoma, WA. Her research interests are in the characterization of ultra-thin perovskite films with application for dynamic catalysis and advanced electronics.