Team
Research Scientist
Parthi Santhanam
Ph.D., MIT
Parthi is a project scientist in the Raman Lab. His interests include opto-electronic energy technologies, entropy and information in electronic and photonic systems, radiative cooling, and emerging semiconductor technologies. As a researcher, his focus is on developing electro-luminescent cooling devices and their applications to compact, portable cryogenics as well as the long-term societal need for more energy-efficient HVAC and waste heat recovery solutions.
Graduate Students
David Abraham
B.S., Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
David is a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. He spent two years at Northrop Grumman as a microelectronics process engineer fabricating next-generation RF devices. He is now researching optoelectronic systems and how they can control thermal emission spectra.
John Brewer
B.S., Optical Sciences and Engineering, University of Arizona
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
John is a fifth year Ph.D. student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. He is interested in topics including optical meta-materials, non-hermitian optics, and energy conservation. His current research investigates how optical meta-materials can be used to create sensing and imaging devices in the infrared wavelengths.
Daniel Cui
B.S., Electrical Engineering and Physics, UC Berkeley
Daniel is a first-year PhD student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. As an undergraduate, he conducted research in Moiré photonics at UC Berkeley. He also worked interned at startups in the battery materials and biomedical device industries. In the lab, he is investigating electroluminescent cooling and non-Hermitian photonic systems. Broadly, he is interested in solid-state devices, symmetry breaking in condensed matter physics, and strongly correlated systems.
Samuel Dunscombe
B.S., Applied Physics, UC Santa Cruz
Sam is a second year M.S. student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. He has worked as a researcher and engineer in the field of thin film deposition for 8 years at companies such Philip Lumileds, Intematix and Aerospace Corporation. He is interested in topics including space optics and thermal control and is researching phase change materials for the application to temperature adaptive coatings.
Jae S. Hwang
B.S., Materials Science and Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
Jae is a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. His current work is focused on the simulation and experimental realization of novel photonic and optoelectronic systems. He is broadly interested in optics and solid-state physics.
Aryan Zaveri
B.S., Physics, UCSB
Aryan is as second year Ph.D student in the Materials Science and Engineering department. He completed his undergraduate students in Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he conducted research on Na and Li-ion cathode materials.
Undergraduate Students
Kara Levy
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Kara is a senior in the Materials Science and Engineering department. She is interested in biomaterials as well as the integration of computer science into materials science.
Benjamin Pham
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Ben is a senior in the Materials Science and Engineering department. His interests are in the machine learning applications to material science. He is currently involved with research involving the optimization of metasurfaces using neural networks.
Robert Yang
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Robert is a senior in the Materials Science and Engineering department. He has contributed to a range of projects at the intersection of materials development and characterization, radiative cooling and new approaches to energy and sustainability.
Lab Alumni
Prof. Jyotirmoy Mandal
Current position: Assistant Professor, Princeton University
Position in lab: Postdoctoral Scholar (2019-2022)
Xin Huang, Ph.D.
Thesis title: Controlling Thermal Emission: Fundamental Mechanisms and
Applications to Water and Energy Technologies
Position after graduating: Display Module Engineer, Apple
Chris Yeung, Ph.D.
Thesis title: “Deep Learning for the Design and Characterization of Nanophotonic Materials and Structures”
Position after graduating: Data Analytics Foundry Engineer, AMD
Jin Xu, Ph.D.
Thesis title: “Loss-driven photonic materials”
Position after graduating: Scientist, Applied Materials
Ju-Ming Tsai, M.S.
Thesis title: “Investigating the Behavior of Nanophotonic Structures using Explainable Convolutional Neural Networks”
Position after graduating: Applications Development Engineer, KLA
David Ho, M.S.
Position after graduating: Epitaxial Materials Engineering, HRL Laboratories
Sachin Kulkarni, B.S.
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Position after graduating: Ph.D. Student, Northwestern University
Julia Liang, B.S.
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Position after graduating: Mechanical Integrity Engineer, Phillips 66
Lukas Frommel (Visiting Graduate Student, Justus Liebeg University, GermanY)
Ryan Tsai (High school student, Harvard-Westlake School)
Brian King (Undergraduate student, MSE Department, UCLA)
Yusaku Kawagoe (Visiting M.S. student, Nagoya University, JUACEP program)
Bin Zhao (Visiting Ph.D. student, USTC)
Bhaskar Abhiraman (Penn Undergraduate, VIPER program)
Mohamed Elshabrawishy (Penn Undergraduate, VIPER program)
Baran Kayim (Penn Undergraduate, PURM Award)
Sergio Roman (Penn Undergraduate, PURM Award)
Angela Yang (Penn Undergraduate, VIPER Program)
