Nanostructures and Computation Group Members

The Nanostructures and Computation Group is headed by Prof. Steven G. Johnson in the Department of Mathematics at MIT, who joined the MIT faculty in 2004.

Current Group Members

The current graduate and undergraduate students working in the group are (in decreasing order of seniority):

Photo of Alejandro Rodriguez →Alejandro Rodriguez (alexrod7 ατ mit døt edu) is a joint postdoctoral researcher with Harvard University (where he works with F. Capasso and M. Loncar, SEAS). He received his PhD in 2010 from the MIT Physics Department (working with SGJ), where he previously received his bachelor of science degree in 2006. His current work involves the intersection of quantum and classical electromagnetism in nanostructured media, from single-photon nonlinear effects to Casimir forces. Born in Cuba, Alejandro is an avid cinema fan and salsa dancer. He has been working with SGJ since his UROP project starting summer 2004. Office: 8-313, x3-4780.

Photograph of Hila Hashemi←Hila Hashemi (hila ατ math døt mit døt edu) is postdoctoral researcher in in applied mathematics. She is originally from Iran. She finished her B.S. degrees in applied mathematics and physics at University of California, Berkeley in spring 2006. She joined the group in January 2007 and received her PhD in 2012. She works on problems involving nonlinear optics in microcavities as well as the mathematical limitations of invisibility cloaks. Her hobbies include reading books and news, skiing, taking long walks, playing the piano, and of course hanging out with friends. Office: 8-309, x4-0338.

Photograph of Xiangdong Liang→Xiangdong Liang (xdliang ατ gmail døt com) is a fourth-year PhD student in the mathematics department, originally from China and an alumnus of City University of Hong Kong. He is currently working on simulation of instabilities in fiber-drawing processes and large-scale optimization techniques for nanophotonics. Office: 8-309, x4-0338.

Photograph of Homer Reid←M. T. Homer Reid (homereid ατ mit døt edu) is a postdoctoral Instructor in applied mathematics at MIT. Homer's research is on advanced numerical methods in physics, such as developing boundary-element methods and integral-equation formulations of electromagnetism for Casimir forces, thermal radiation, and other applications. Office: 8-311, x3-5482.

photo of David Liu→David Liu (xdavidliu ατ gmail døt com) is a third-year graduate student in physics at MIT, who received B.S. degrees in physics and economics from Rutgers. He is working on projects involving optimization-based transformation optics and nonlinear solvers for laser modes. Office: 8-309, x4-0338.

Rolando La Placa (laplaca ατ college døt harvard døt edu) is an undergraduate physics major at Harvard, co-advised by Marko Loncar, who is working on designing light extraction from spontaneous emission.

photo of Owen Miller←Owen Miller (odmiller ατ math døt mit døt edu) is a postdoctoral researcher in applied mathematics, who received his PhD in 2012 from Berkeley (with Eli Yablonovitch) and bachelor's degrees from Univ. Virginia in EE and Physics. His main research interests center around large-scale optimization in photonics, and his PhD work focused on photovoltaic applications. Office: 8-311, x3-5482.

photo of Thanard Kurutach→Thanard Kurutach (kurutach ατ mit døt edu) is a sophomore majoring in mathematics and EECS, working on a UROP project involving nonlinear eigenproblems arising in integral-equation formulations of electromagnetic scattering problems.

Alejandro Garcia (acgarcia ατ mit døt edu) is a senior in applied mathematics, working on a UROP project involving integral-equation solvers and low-loss THz mirrors.

Amy Guyomard (amyguyomard ατ mit døt edu) is a senior in mathematics, working on a UROP project involving fluid instabilities in capillaries with strong thermal gradients.

Rodrigo Muñoz (rodmk ατ mit døt edu) is a senior in computer science, working on a UROP project involving the Pochoir compiler project for cache-oblivious stencil algorithms.

Graduated group members


Former postdoctoral and visiting researchers

Former undergraduate researchers

Jorge Perez, MIT physics, worked on the computational modelling of Casimir forces in nanostructured geometries.

David Ramirez (d_ram ατ mit døt edu), MIT physics, worked on a UROP project involving intra-cavity nonlinear frequency conversion, co-advised by Prof. Marin Soljacic, resulting in this paper. Currently a graduate student in physics at Stanford.

Photograph of Jaime Varela→Jaime Varela, MIT physics, worked on a UROP project involving multi-body Casimir interactions in fluids, resulting in this paper. Currently a graduate student in physics at Berkeley.

Photograph of Amy Zhang←Amy Zhang, MIT EECS, worked on a UROP project involving perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundaries.


Issac Buenrostro, worked on adaptive mesh-refinement for integral-equation Casimir-force computations. Currently at Stanford.

Arthur Parzygnat, an undergraduate at Queen's college (class of 2010) who spent the summer of 2009 working on a project involving rigorous conditions for localization in band gaps, resulting in this paper.

→Thanasin Nampaisarn is an undergraduate physics/math student at MIT from Thailand who worked on a summer project involving simultaneous localization of light and sound by simultaneous three-dimensional phononic and photonic band gaps.

Nathan Lachenmyer is an undergraduate in the physics department who worked on a summer UROP project involving quantum Casimir torques.

Photograph of Bryn Waldwick→Bryn Waldwick (waldwick ατ mit døt edu) worked on a UROP project involving bending losses in hollow-core Bragg fibers. He is also on the MIT golf team, and enjoys playing basketball as well as the saxophone and guitar.

Photo of Ruitian Lang ←Ruitian Lang (percyl ατ mit døt edu) worked on a UROP project involving adiabatic theorems in discrete (or discretized) systems in Fall 2007.

Photo of Xuancheng Shao ← Xuancheng Shao (zero ατ mit døt edu) worked on UROP projects in 2006 and 2007 involving minimal-arithmetic algorithms for discrete cosine and sine transforms (published here and here).

Go back to the group web page, or see our publications and preprints.