Nanostructures and Computation Group Members

Current Group Members

• ⇨Wenchao Ma (mawc ατ mit.edu) is a graduate student in chemistry at MIT, working on photonic inverse design for photochemical systems.
  
• ⇦Mo Chen (mochen ατ mit.edu) is a graduate student in applied mathematics at MIT, working on PDE-constrained optimization.
  
• ⇨Sophie Fisher (sefisher ατ mit.edu) is a graduate student in electrical engineering at MIT, working on end-to-end design of thermal-imaging.
• ⇦Ian Hammond (ihammond ατ mit.edu) is a graduate student in electrical engineering at MIT working on nonlinear resonance problems.
  
• ⇨Lorenzo Van Muñoz (lxvm ατ mit.edu) is a graduate student in physics at MIT working on computational methods for inverse design, mode cleanup, and quadrature of resonant responses.
  
• ⇨Rodrigo I. Arietta Candia (rarrieta ατ mit.edu, 2-390d) is a graduate student in applied mathematics at MIT working on computational methods for wave problems and optimization.
  
• ⇦Frederic J. N. Jorgensen (fjorgen ατ mit.edu, 2-333a) is a graduate student in applied mathematics at MIT working on design of active surfaces for wave routing.
• Justin Beroz (jberoz ατ mit.edu), co-advised with Prof. John Bush, is a physics graduate student working on fluid turbulence transitions.
• Anna Simpson (simpsann ατ mit.edu), co-advised with Prof. David Darmofal and Dr. Marshall Galbraith, is a physics graduate student working on computational fluid mechanics.
• Jaden Thomas-Markarian (jthomasm ατ mit.edu) is an undergraduate physics/math major working on localization theorems for discrete wave systems (phonons).
• George Shaker (georg157 ατ mit.edu) is an undergraduate math major working on resonance/eigenvalue optimization problems.
• Beñat Martinez de Aguirre Jokisch (bmdaj ατ dtu.dk) is a visiting graduate student from the TopOpt group at DTU in Denmark, studying topology optimization in photonics.

Graduated group members

• ⇨Wenjie Yao (jayyao0917 ατ hotmail.com), Ph.D. Electrical Engineering (August 2022): Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics. Currently an engineer at Huawei.
• ⇦Mohammed Benzaouia (medbenzaouia ατ gmail.com). Ph.D. Electrical Engineering (October 2021). On Applications of Resonances, from One to Infinity. Currently assistant professor of Electrical Engineering at Al Akhawayn University, Morocco.
• ⇨Raphaël Pestourie (raphael.pestourie ατ gmail.com). Ph.D. Applied Mathematics (Dec 2019), Harvard. Assume Your Neighbor Is Your Equal: Inverse Design in Nanophotonics. Currently a professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech.
• ⇦Fan Wang (fwangmit ατ gmail.com). Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering (Aug 2019), MIT. New modeling of compact, high-efficiency, and widely-tunable gas-phase terahertz lasers. Currently at Tencent.
• ⇨Adi Pick (Adi.Pick ατ mail.huji.ac.il). Ph.D. Physics (Aug 2017), Harvard University. Spontaneous Emission in Nanophotonics. Currently a professor in the Faculty of Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
• ⇦Yoon Kyung "Eunnie" Lee (eunnie12 ατ alum.mit.edu). Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering (June 2017), co-advised by Prof. Nicholas X. Fang. Optimal wavefronts and subwavelength structures: Computer-guided design for optics and acoustics. Currently an associate at Latham & Watkins.
• ⇨David Liu (xdavidliu ατ gmail.com), PhD Physics (Sep 2015): Nonlinear Design in Nanophotonics. Currently at Google.
• ⇨Xiangdong Liang (xdliang ατ gmail.com), PhD Mathematics (Feb 2013): Modeling of Fluids and Waves with Analytics and Numerics. Currently a Senior Software Engineer at Instacart.
• ⇦Hila Hashemi (hila ατ math.mit.edu), PhD Mathematics (Jan 2012): Geometric Manipulation of Light: From Nonlinear Optics to Invisibility Cloaks. Currently an Applied Scientist at Amazon.
• ⇨Alexander McCauley (mccauley ατ mit døt edu), PhD Physics (August 2011): Novel applications of Maxwell's equations to quantum and thermal phenomena. Currently working in Machine Learning and Perception at at Snap Inc..
• ⇦Ka Yan Karen Lee (kylkaren ατ mit.edu), PhD Electrical Engineering (May 2011): Understanding new regimes for light-matter interactions. Currently lecturer at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• ⇨M. T. Homer Reid (homer ατ homerreid.com) PhD Physics (Dec 2010), co-advised by Prof. Jacob White: Fluctuating surface currents: a new algorithm for efficient prediction of Casimir interactions among arbitrary materials in arbitrary geometries".
• André Kurs (andrekurs ατ gmail.com) PhD Physics (Dec 2010), co-advised by Prof. Marin Soljacic: Novel resonance-assisted electromagnetic transport phenomena. Currently founder at OmniZare.
• ⇦Alejandro W. Rodriguez, PhD Physics 2010: Fluctuation-Induced Interactions and Nonlinear Nanophotonics. Currently: Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University.
• ⇨Ardavan Oskooi, ScD Materials Science and Engineering 2010: Computation & Design for Nanophotonics. Currently an engineer at Meta.
• ⇦Lei Zhang, PhD Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 2010 (co-advised with Prof. Jacob White): A Boundary Element Method with Surface Conductive Absorbers for 3-D Analysis of Nanophotonics. Currently at UBS Investment Bank.

Former postdoctoral and visiting researchers

• Daniel Lloyd-Jones (daniel.lloyd-jones20 ατ imperial.ac.uk) was a visiting student in 2023 from Imperial College London, working on oblique-wave incidence in FDTD simulations.
• Simon Mataigne (simon.mataigne ατ student.uclouvain.be) was a visiting student in 2022 from UC Louvaine (via the MIT-Belgium program) working on numerical linear algebra for real-antisymmetric matrices, developing the SkewLinearAlgebra.jl software package.
• ⇨Zin Lin (zinlin.zinlin ατ gmail.com) was a postdoctoral research associate from 2018–2022, who worked on topology optimization and inverse-design methods for large-scale photonics devices and computational imaging. Currently Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech.
• ⇨Rasmus Christiansen (raelch ατ mek.dtu.dk) was a visiting postdoctoral researcher in 2019. Currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
• ⇨Wonseok Shin was a postdoc and applied-math instructor from 2015-2018, who received is PhD in 2013 from Stanford with Shanhui Fan. Currently at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
• ⇨Owen Miller (owen.miller ατ yale.edu), postdoctoral researcher 2012–2016, is currently an Assistant Professor of Applied Physics at Yale.
• Liang Jie Wong (liangjie.wong ατ ntu.edu.sg) postdoctoral researcher 2013–2014, currently Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University.
• Jean-Christophe Nave, postdoctoral researcher 2009–2010, currently Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, McGill University.
• ⇨Zhuanfang Bi (bizhuanfang ατ gmail.com) was a visiting PhD student in 2010–2011 from Shandong University working on the design and fabrication of nonlinear-optical devices (resulting in this paper), who received her PhD from Shandong in 2012. Currently a lecturer at Beihang University.

Former undergraduate researchers

• Daniel Ogbe (dogbe ατ mit.edu) was a sophomore math major who worked on topology optimization of topological defects for wave localization.
• William Li (wfli ατ mit.edu) was a physics major at MIT working on paraxial light-angle detection using compressed sensing, LISTA, and end-to-end photonics optimization (published hereGaurav Arya (aryag ατ mit.edu) was a sophomore math major at MIT working on nesting compressed sensing in end-to-end photonics optimization (published here).
• Emily Cheng (emilych ατ mit.edu) was a sophomore math major at MIT working on network visualization methods for departmental course offerings and roadmaps in consultation with the MIT Council for Math Majors.
• Lorenzo Van Muñoz (lxvm ατ caltech.edu) was a rising-senior physics major at Caltech working on numerical methods for electromagnetic scattering through variable surface-impedance structures.
• Luke Qi (lukeqi7 ατ mit.edu) was a fourth-year undergraduate physics/EE major at MIT who worked on numerical methods for electromagnetic scattering through variable surface-impedance structures.
• Andy Xu was a first/second-year MIT math major who worked on Gaussian quadrature schemes for Matsubara summation.
• August Trollbäck was a junior at MIT in mathematics and electrical engineering, working on a UROP project involving evaluation of exponential integrals and continued fractions; the results were merged into the Julia SpecialFunctions package.
• Jerrell Cockerham from Colorado College mathematics worked on an MSRPx project involving slowly varying approximations for optical metasurfaces in summer 2020.
• Nolan Reilly worked on methods for improving Cwikel's bound in Schrodinger problems.
• Beatrice Nash worked on nonlinear eigensolver methods in fall 2017.
• Patrick Ledwidth was an undergraduate UROP student working on monotonicity theorems for dispersion relations and spectral inequalities in Maxwell equations in 2016.
• Felipe Hernández worked on numerical methods for Jordan chains (published here) in 2015–2016.
• Sandeep Silwal was an undergraduate UROP student working on numerical methods for special functions in fall 2015.
• Aryan Khojandi was an undergraduate math major working on fluid instabilities in extensional multilayered capillary flows in summer 2013 – spring 2014.
• Amyas Chew was an undergraduate physics major working on optical "billiard-ball" chaos, in collaboration with Prof. Yidong Chong at NTU in summer 2014.
• Erin Tomlinson worked on nonequilibrium Casimir forces (published here) in summer/fall 2014.
• Songtai Li, MIT physics, worked on phase-insensitive cylindrical "cloaking" in spring 2014.
• Alejandro Garcia (acgarcia ατ mit.edu) worked on a UROP project involving integral-equation solvers and low-loss THz mirrors in fall 2012.
• Amy Guyomard (amyguyomard ατ mit.edu), MIT mathematics, worked on computational modeling of fluid instabilities in capillaries with strong thermal gradients in fall 2012 (published here).
• Rodrigo Muñoz (rodmk ατ mit.edu), MIT computer science, worked on a UROP project involving the Pochoir compiler project for cache-oblivious stencil algorithms.
• Noam Buckman worked on "wagon-wheel" optical resonantors in summer/fall 2013.
• Thanard Kurutach (kurutach ατ mit.edu), MIT mathematics and EECS, working on a UROP project involving nonlinear eigenproblems arising in integral-equation formulations of electromagnetic scattering problems.
• Rolando La Placa (laplaca ατ college.harvard.edu), an undergraduate physics major at Harvard, worked on light extraction for spontaneous emission.
• 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.
• Thomas Alcorn, MIT physics, worked on Casimir forces in glide-symmetric geometries and four-wave mixing in cavities (published here) in fall 2011 and summer 2012.
• Katherine Rudolph, MIT Math, worked on nonequilibrium corrections to Casimir levitation in summer 2011.
• ⇨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.
• ⇦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.
• ⇨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.
• ⇦Ruitian Lang (percyl ατ mit døt edu) worked on a UROP project involving adiabatic theorems in discrete (or discretized) systems in fall 2007.
• ⇦ Xuancheng Shao (zero ατ mit.edu) worked on UROP projects in 2006 and 2007 involving minimal-arithmetic algorithms for discrete cosine and sine transforms (published here and here).
• Alejandro Rodriguez worked on effects of disorder on photonic-bandgap confinement (published here) and nonlinear thermal radiation (fall 2004 to spring 2006).