Here, we introduce the executive committee for the 2017-2018 school year:
President - Victoria Hwang
Victoria Hwang is a graduate student in Vinny Manoharan’s group and outreach board member for the Harvard SEAS Photonics Club. Her research is on understanding the light scattering that occurs in a particular class of disordered colloidal assemblies that exhibit structural color. This type of material exhibits angle-independent color that arises due to the internal structure of the material, as opposed to pigments, opening up applications in paints, coatings, and cosmetics, among others.
Vice President - Sören Brandt
Sören Brandt is a graduate student in Joanna Aizenberg’s research group and secretary for the Harvard SEAS Photonics Club. His research looks at the structural wetting of self-assembled, inverse opal thin films. This type of photonic crystals displays angle-dependent vibrant colors that depend on the underlying structure relating optical properties to surface wetting.
Co-Treasurer - Andy Greenspon
Andrew Greenspon is an applied physics PhD candidate at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His work in Prof. Evelyn Hu's lab focuses on characterizing lanthanide emitters in nanostructures for applications in optical cavities, waveguides, and luminescent probes. Prior to that, he worked in the Space Division at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) for a year. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and received a B.A. in physics from Amherst College. His broader interests include science communication and public policy. He enjoys hiking, aikido, and swing and blues dancing.
Co-Treasurer - Boran Han
Secretary/Webmaster - Daryl Inna Vulis
Daryl is an applied physics PhD candidate in Prof. Eric Mazur's group. There, she works on the development and applications of integrated zero-index metamaterials. Daryl is from Queens, NYC and received her B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Stony Brook University.
Co-advisor - Ida Pavlichenko
Ida Pavlichenko is a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Joanna Aizenberg at the Harvard SEAS and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. She earned her MSc degree in physics from the Lomonosov Moscow State University. She then pursued her doctoral studies in the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Ida’s PhD research was focused on the development of an innovative integrated optoelectronic sensing platform based on bio-inspired “smart” stimuli-responsive photonic crystals. Currently, in her research she applies the principles of bio-inspired engineering for the assembly of novel photonic materials and devices.
Co-advisor - Anna Shneidman
Anna Shneidman is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Joanna Aizenberg and a co-advisor to the Harvard SEAS Photonics Club. Her current research involves self-assembled and nanofabricated photonic structures for lasing and catalytic applications, and she is interested in the role of disorder in such structures. Her PhD research was conducted in the laboratory of Marko Lončar at Harvard University on the topics of polymer photonics and magnetic field sensing with nitrogen-vacancy centers.
Co-advisor - Sarah Griesse-Nascimento
Sarah Griesse-Nascimento is an Applied Physics PhD candidate at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and outreach coordinator for the Harvard SEAS Photonics Club. Her work in Prof. Eric Mazur's lab focuses on characterizing the material and optical properties of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanostructures for integrated photonic devices. She is interested in developing TiO2 as a material platform for telecommunications and quantum information sciences. Prior to Harvard, Sarah received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Boston University. She grew up in Brazil, Germany and Washington State. She enjoys traveling, learning new sports and performing music from other countries in the World Music Ensemble at Harvard.
Industry, Outreach and Events Co-coordinator - Noah Rubin
Noah A. Rubin is a third year graduate student in applied physics in the group of Prof. Federico Capasso. His research involves the application of nanophotonics to novel polarization optics, and the physics and applications of quantum cascade lasers.
Industry, Outreach and Events Co-coordinator - Annie Stephenson
Annie Stephenson is a graduate student in Vinny Manoharan's group at Harvard and an outreach/industry coordinator in the Harvard SEAS photonics club. She studies structural color, a type of coloring the arises due to light scattering from the nanoscale structure of a material instead of from light absorption. Her work focuses on the effect of disorder on light scattering in structurally colored materials made from assemblies of colloidal particles. When she is not doing research, she likes to spend time rock climbing, listening to music and podcasts, and reading novels.