The Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science

The Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science Recipients

• Silvia Vignolini, University of Cambridge (2019)

  Silvia Vignolini studied physics at the University of Florence, Italy. In 2009, she was awarded a PhD in Solid State Physics at the European Laboratory for non-Linear Spectroscopy and the Physics Department at the University of Florence. In 2010, she moved to Cambridge as a post-doctoral research associate working in the Cavendish Laboratory and the Plant Science Department. In 2013, she started her independent research becoming a BBSRC David Philip Fellow. Dr. Vignolini is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Cambridge in Chemistry and Bio-inspired materials. Her research interest lies at the interface of chemistry, soft-matter physics, optics, and biology. In particular, her research focuses on the study of how natural materials (like cellulose) are assembled into complex architectures within living organisms and how such materials can be exploited to fabricate a novel class of photonic pigments.
  
  
• Laura Na Liu, Universität Heidelberg (2018)

  Dynamic Plasmonics

  Laura Na Liu is a professor at the Kirchhoff Institute for Physics at Universität Heidelberg. She received her PhD degree in physics at Universität Stuttgart in 2009, working on 3D complex plasmonics at optical frequencies. In 2010, she worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2011, Liu joined Rice University as the Texas Instruments Visiting Professor. At the end of 2012, she obtained a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and became an independent group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. She joined Universität Heidelberg in 2015. Her research interest is multidisciplinary. She works at the interface between nanoplasmonics, biology and chemistry. Her group focuses on developing sophisticated and smart plasmonic nanosystems for answering structural biology questions as well as catalytic chemistry questions in local environments.
  
  
• Xiaobo Yin, University of Colorado Boulder (2017)

  Put Microstructured Optical Metamaterials to Work in Large-Scale Energy Applications

  Xiaobo Yin is an assistant professor and the Bruce S. Anderson Faculty Fellow in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He received his PhD degree from Stanford University in 2008. He was a senior scientist at the NSEC Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and a research assistant professor at Stanford University before he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder in 2013. He received the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2015. His current research focuses on controlling light-matter interaction at the nanoscale and developing new optical materials for a broad range of applications, from brain imaging to energy harvesting and thermal management. His work addresses both the fundamentals of nano-optics and the technological hurdles of deploying nanomaterials and metamaterials for real-world applications through scalable and sustainable nanomanufacturing. 

  
  
• Andrea Alù, The University of Texas at Austin (2016)

  Andrea Alù is the Temple Foundation Endowed Professor No. 3 at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his Laurea degree (2001) and PhD degree (2007) from the University of Roma Tre, and, after a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin in 2009. His current research interests span over a broad range of areas, including metamaterials and plasmonics, electromagnetics, nano-optics, photonics and acoustics. Alù is a Fellow of IEEE, OSA, and APS. He is a prolific author, with over 320 journal papers (>15,000 citations), 13 patents or patent applications, and he has received several scientific awards and honors, including the NSF Alan T. Waterman Award (2015), the OSA Adolph Lomb Medal (2013) and the URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal (2011).

  In this MRS TV interview, Andrea Alù discusses the importance of metamaterials and new applications of metamaterials in nanophotonics.
  
  
  
  
• Ali Khademhosseini, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (2015)
  Ali Khademhosseini is a professor at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women's Hospital and is affiliated with Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Division of Health Sciences and Technology and Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering. He also directs a satellite laboratory at the World Premier International Advanced Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University.
  
  He has edited eight books and has authored over 400 journal papers, 60 book chapters and 20 patent/disclosure applications, and has been invited to give 250 seminars. He has been cited ~20,000 times and has an h-index of 74. Khademhosseini has received over 30 major national and international awards. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given by the U.S. government for early career investigators. He is also a Fellow of AIMBE and AAAS. He serves on the editorial board of numerous leading journals as well as an associate editor for ACS Nano (IF: 12).
  
  He received his Ph.D. in bioengineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2005), and MASc (2001) and BASc (1999) degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto.
  
  
• Julia R. Greer, California Institute of Technology (2014)

  A key focus in Julia R. Greer’s research is the development of three-dimensional nano-architectures and designing experiments to assess their properties and deformation mechanisms. These “nano-metamaterials” have multiple applications, for example, as biomedical devices, battery electrodes, and lightweight structural materials and provide a rich “playground” for fundamental scientific pursuits. Greer received her SB degree in chemical engineering with a minor in advanced music performance from MIT in 1997, and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Stanford University. She has also worked as an integration engineer at Intel Corporation (2000–2003) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Palo Alto Research Center, PARC (2005–2007). Greer joined the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences of the California Institute of Technology in 2007 and has appointments in materials science, mechanical engineering, and medical engineering departments.

  Greer was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2014) and is a recipient of the Nano Letters Young Investigator Lectureship (2013), Society of Engineering Science Young Investigator Award (2013), TMS Early Career Faculty Award (2013), the inaugural NASA Early Career Faculty Award (2012), Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award (2012), Sia Nemat-Nasser ASME Early Career Award (2011), DOE Early Career Award (2011), WTN’s World Technology Award in Materials (2010), TMS’ Young Leaders Award in Structural Materials Division (2010), DARPA’s Young Faculty Award (2009), Technology Review’s Top Young Innovator Under 35 Award, TR-35 (2008) and NSF’s CAREER Award (2007). Greer serves as an associate editor of Nano Letters and on the board of reviewing editors for Science. She is also a concert pianist, with most recent performances of “nanomechanics rap” with MUSE.IQUE (director Rachael Worby), solo piano recitals and chamber concerts at Caltech (2007 to present) and as a soloist of the Brahms Concerto No. 2 with the Redwood Symphony (2006).
  
  At the 2014 MRS Fall Meeting, Greer presented "Three-Dimensional Architected Nanostructured Meta-Materials." 
  

  
  
  
  
• Jennifer A. Dionne, Stanford University (2013)
  Jennifer A. Dionne is an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. She received B.S. degrees in physics and electrical and systems engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2003, and a Ph.D. in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology in 2009, under the supervision of Professor Harry Atwater. She joined Stanford in 2010 following a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with Professor Paul Alivisatos. Dionne's research develops new optical materials for applications ranging from high-efficiency solar energy conversion to bioimaging and manipulation. This research has led to demonstration of negative refraction at visible wavelengths, development of a subwavelength silicon electro-optic modulator, development of quantum plasmonic materials, design of new optical tweezers for nano-specimen trapping, and demonstration of a metamaterial fluid. Her work has been recognized with a NSF CAREER Award, AFOSR Young Investigator Award, Outstanding Young Alum Award from Washington University in St. Louis, Hellman Fellowship, and the Materials Research Society Gold Award. In 2011, Dionne was named one of MIT Technology Review's TR35-35 international innovators under 35 tackling important problems in transformative ways.
  
  At the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting, Dionne presented "Lights, Nano, Action! New Optical Materials and Tools to Visualize Nanoscale Phenomena."