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 Students

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

Photo of Alejandro Rodriguez

→Alejandro Rodriguez (alexrod7 ατ mit døt edu) is a second-year graduate student in the Physics Department, 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 Ardavan Farjadpour Oskooi

←Ardavan Farjadpour Oskooi (ardfar ατ mit døt edu) is a fourth-year graduate student pursuing a masters in Computation for Design & Optimization and a doctorate in Materials Science & Engineering. He received his bachelors degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto in June 2004. His research interests center around computational electromagnetism, photonic bandgap materials, and robust optimization. In his spare time, he enjoys training in Japanese martial arts, playing classical piano and dancing salsa. Office: 8-307, x2-2904.

Photo of Karen Lee

→Ka Yan Karen Lee (kylkaren ατ mit døt edu) is a fourth-year graduate student in Electrical Engineering at MIT. She is currently working on several problems in nanophotonics, from a project on negative refraction and flat-lens imaging at optical wavelengths to rigorous sufficient conditions for waveguiding in photonic-crystal fibers. Karen grew up in Hong Kong. In her spare time, she enjoys singing and reading. She also loves good movies, musicals, operas and other performances. Office: 8-311, x3-5482.

Photograph of Hila Hashemi

←Hila Hashemi (hila ατ math døt mit døt edu) is a second-year PhD student 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 is currently working on problems involving nonlinear harmonic generation in cavities. 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.

Photo of Alexander McCauley

→Alexander McCauley (mccauley ατ mit døt edu) is a second-year PhD student in the physics department at MIT. He is currently working on projects involving losses in photonic-crystal slabs due to surface roughness and symmetry breaking, as well as a project involving photonic quasicrystals. Office: 8-309, x4-0338.

André Kurs (akurs ατ mit døt edu) is a third-year PhD student in the physics department at MIT, co-advised by Prof. Marin Soljacic. His projects involve supercollimation, coupling to slow-light, and wireless power transfer. Office: 8-307, x2-2904.

Photograph of Bryn Waldwick

→Bryn Waldwick (waldwick ατ mit døt edu) is a sophomore working 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.

Former group members

←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.