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 Memberss

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 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.

Photo of Karen Lee
→Ka Yan Karen Lee (kylkaren ατ mit døt edu) is a sixth-year graduate student in Electrical Engineering at MIT. She has worked 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, and is currently working on a problem involving electromagnetic phenomena in brain injuries from explosions. 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 fifth-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 fifth-year PhD student in the physics department at MIT. He is has worked on projects involving losses in photonic-crystal slabs due to surface roughness and symmetry breaking, as well as a project involving photonic quasicrystals, and is currently working on problems involving Casimir forces. Office: 8-309, x4-0338.

André Kurs (akurs ατ mit døt edu) is a sixth-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 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. Office: 8-309, x4-0338.

Photograph of Homer Reid←M. T. Homer Reid (homereid ατ mit døt edu) is a PhD student in the physics department at MIT, co-advised with Prof. Jacob White. Homer's research is on developing boundary-element methods and integral-equation formulations of Casimir forces. Office: 36-881, x3-2594.

Photograph of Zhuanfang Bi

→Zhuanfang Bi (bizhuanfang ατ gmail døt com) is a visiting PhD student from Shandong University working on the design and fabrication of nonlinear-optical devices. Office: 8-311, x3-5482.

David Ramirez (d_ram ατ mit døt edu) is an undergraduate physics major at MIT, currently working on a UROP project involving intra-cavity nonlinear frequency conversion, co-advised by Prof. Marin Soljacic.

Photograph of Jaime Varela→Jaime Varela (jaimevrl ατ mit døt edu) is an undergraduate physics major at MIT, currently working on a UROP project involving multi-body Casimir interactions in fluids.

Photograph of Amy Zhang←Amy Zhang (amyzhang ατ mit døt edu) is an undergraduate EECS major at MIT, currently working on a UROP project involving perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundaries.

Issac Buenrostro (ibuenros ατ mit døt edu) is an undergraduate mathematics major at MIT, working on adaptive mesh-refinement for integral-equation Casimir-force computations.

Graduated group members


Former postdoctoral researchers

Former undergraduate researchers

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.