People
The Photonics Laboratory at UCLA consists of the director, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, development engineers, undergraduate students, and visiting scientists. The Photonics Laboratory occasionally hires undergraduate students as interns. We currently have open research positions and are accepting applications from interested candidates.
Director
![]() |
Departments of Electrical Engineering & Bioengineering Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine California NanoSystems Institute |
Program Manager
![]() | Keisuke Goda, Ph.D. Burroughs Wellcome Fund CASI Fellow Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Bioengineering California NanoSystems Institute Ph.D., Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology B.S., Physics, University of California, Berkeley Homepage |
Postdoctoral Researchers
![]() | Eric Diebold, Ph.D. Department of Electrical Engineering California NanoSystems Institute Ph.D., Applied Physics, Harvard University B.S., Electrical Engineering, Duke University |
|
![]() | Chao Wang, Ph.D. NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Ottawa M.S., Optics, Nankai University Homepage |
|
![]() | Jost Adam, Ph.D. German Research Fellow Department of Electrical Engineering California NanoSystems Institute Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, CAU zu Kiel M.S., Mathematics, CAU zu Kiel |
|
![]() | Mohammad H. Asghari, Ph.D. NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, INRS-EMT M.S., Electrical Engineering, Sharif University B.S., Electrical Engineering, KNTU Homepage |
Senior Development Engineers
![]() | Akhil Shah, Ph.D. Department of Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Physics, UCLA B.S., Physics, UCLA |
|
![]() | Daniel R. Solli, Ph.D. Department of Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Physics, University of California, Berkeley B.S., Physics, University of California, Berkeley |
Graduate Students
![]() | David Borlaug Department of Electrical Engineering M.S., Electrical Engineering, UCLA B.S., Electrical Engineering, UCSB |
|
![]() | Kam Yan Hon Department of Electrical Engineering M.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Hong Kong B.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Hong Kong |
|
![]() | Ata Mahjoubfar Department of Electrical Engineering California NanoSystems Institute M.S., Electrical Engineering, UCLA B.S., Electrical Engineering, Sharif University |
|
![]() | Peter DeVore Department of Physics M.S., Physics, UCLA B.S., Physics, University of California, Berkeley |
|
![]() | Brandon Buckley Department of Physics M.S., Physics, UCLA B.S., Physics, Cornell University |
|
![]() | Claire Chen Department of Bioengineering B.S., Optical Engineering, Fudan University |
|
![]() | Cejo Lonappan Department of Electrical Engineering B.Tech., Electronics & Communication Engneering, MEC Homepage |
|
![]() | Daniel Lam |
![]() |
Vahagn Hokhikyan Department of Biomedical Engineering M.S., Electrical Engineering, California State University of Northridge B.S., Computer Engineering, California State University of Northridge |
Visiting Scientists
![]() | Hongwei Chen, Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of Electrical Engineering Tsinghua University Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University B.S., Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University Homepage |
Undergraduate Students
![]() | Nora Brackbill Luce Research Scholar Department of Physics | |
![]() | Rebecca Brown Department of Physics | |
![]() | Jason Liu Department of Chemical Engineering | |
![]() | Sien Mao Department of Electrical Engineering |
|
![]() | Jim Lin Department of Physics |
![]() |
Jerry Tai Department of Physics |
![]() |
Keron Greene Department of Electrical Engineering |
![]() |
Abe Ellison Department of Electrical Engineering |
Alumni
![]() |
Jagannath Sadasivam (Former Graduate Student) Senior Design Engineer Microsemi Corporation Homepage |
![]() | Ali Fard, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Postdoctoral Researcher Wellman Center for Photomedicine Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School |
![]() | Niusha Sarkhosh, Ph.D. (Former Postdoctoral Researcher) Postdoctoral Researcher Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry Shimon Weiss Group UCLA |
![]() | Zhongwei Tan, Ph.D. (Former Visiting Scientist) Associate Professor Institute of Lightwave Technology Beijing Jiaotong University |
|
![]() | Alexander Weidel (Former Visiting Scientist) Graduate Student Hamburg University of Technology, Germany |
|
![]() | Ali Ayazi, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Electrical Engineering Nanophotonics Laboratory University of Washington |
|
![]() | Kevin K. Tsia, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Assistant Professor Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Applied Life Photonics Laboratory University of Hong Kong |
|
![]() | Shalabh Gupta, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Assistant Professor Department of Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay |
|
![]() | Ozdal Boyraz, Ph.D. (Former Postdoctoral Researcher) Assistant Professor Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science University of California, Irvine |
|
![]() | Sasan Fathpour, Ph.D. (Former Postdoctoral Researcher) Assistant Professor Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Integrated Photonics & Energy Solutions Laboratory University of Central Florida |
|
![]() | Varun Raghunathan, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Postdoctoral Fellow Potma Lab University of California, Irvine |
|
![]() | Prakash Koonath, Ph.D. (Former Postdoctoral Researcher) Senior Engineer OE Waves, Inc. |
|
![]() | Jason Chou, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Scientist Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
|
![]() | Gilbert Fu (Former Undergraduate Student) Graduate Student Department of Electrical Engineering Stanford University |
|
![]() | Omer Malik (Former Undergraduate Student) Graduate Student Department of Electrical Engineering Princeton University |
|
![]() | Alan Quach (Former Undergraduate Student) Graduate Student Department of Electrical Engineering Stanford University |
|
![]() | Evan Chen (Former Undergraduate Student) Graduate Student Department of Electrical Engineering Duke University |
|
![]() | Daniela Grasso (Former Visiting Scientist) Researcher |
|
![]() | Rick C. J. Hsu (Former Graduate Student) Researcher |
|
![]() | Dimitri Dimitropoulos (Former Graduate Student) Army in Greece |
|
![]() | Yan Han, Ph.D. (Former Graduate Student) Research Scientist BAE Systems |
|
![]() | Daniel Kim (Former Graduate Student) Software Engineer Carbon Design Systems, Inc. |
|
![]() | Crystal Yang (Former Visiting Scientist) Graduate Student University of Science and Technology of China |
|
![]() | Steffen Moessner (Former Visiting Scientist) Research Scientist |
Collaborators
Aydogan Ozcan - Biophotonics at UCLAManuel Penichet - Surgical Oncology and Immunology at UCLA
Dino Di Carlo - Microfluidic Biotechnology at UCLA
Diana Huffaker - Integrated Nano-Materials at UCLA
Katsushi Arisaka - Biophysics at UCLA
Tatsuo Ito - Microwave Electronics at UCLA
William H. Steier - Polymer Photonics at USC
Alan E. Willner - Optical Communications at USC
Carlos Portera-Cailliau - Neuroscience at UCLA
Popular Articles

Optics & Photonics News
- Green Silicon Photonics
Wired
- Fastest Camera Ever Built Uses ..
Scientific American
- Making Silicon Lase
Open Positions
Exciting projects are available for postdocs, graduate, and undergraduate students. Postdocs and students with fellowships will be given priority. Interested candidates should read this page and send a brief e-mail together with a CV to chaowang@ee.ucla.edu.

















































