People
Benjamin Williams
Professor and Lab Director
Benjamin Williams obtained his B.S. in Physics at Haverford College in 1996, where he performed thesis work on mixing in two-dimensional turbulent fluid flows, for which he received the American Physical Society Apker prize. He then received his M.S. in 1998 and Ph.D. in 2003 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. During this time he developed some of the first terahertz quantum cascade lasers. Prior to joining UCLA, Williams was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. Since 2007, Prof. Williams has been faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCLA, and is a Henry Samueli Engineering Fellow. He was awarded a 2008 DARPA Young Faculty Award, the 2012 NSF CAREER award, and the 2013 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
Eilam Morag
Graduate Student
Projects: Mid-IR QC-lasers, Disordered metasurface VECSELs
Eilam received his B.S. from U. Michigan in Electrical Engineering in June 2018.
Mohammad Shahili
Graduate Student
Project: Design of novel active regions for THz and mid-IR lasers
Mohammad received his B.S. from UCLA in Electrical Engineering in Dec 2018.
Jordane Bloomfield
Graduate Student
Project: Nonlinear intersubband metasurfaces, QC-VECSEL frequency combs
Jordane received her B.S. from Miami University in May 2020.
Daniel McGovern
Graduate Student
Projects: Heterogeneous integration of THz QC-lasers, self-mixing in QC-VECSELs
Daniel received his B.S. at UCLA in 2024.
Michela Mattia
Graduate Student
Project: TBD
Michela received her B.S. at Arizona State University in 2024.
Heran Wang
Undergraduate Student
Project: Modeling of QC metasurfaces
Sebastian Cervantes
Undergraduate Student
Project: Electromagnetic modeling of THz waveguides
Antoine Aoude
Undergraduate Student
Project: Electromagnetic modeling of THz waveguides
Harerta Tesfamicael
Undergraduate Student
Anthony Kim
Alumnus (PhD 2024)
Thesis: Terahertz metasurface laser design and study of optical feedback
Currently at Apple
Alex Song
Alumnus (BS 2024)
Currently at Cornell (grad school)
Yu Wu
Alumnus (PhD 2023)
Thesis: Towards actively mode locked terahertz quantum-cascade VECSELs
Currently postdoc at Stanford
Yue Shen
Alumnus (PhD 2023)
Thesis: THz Time-Domain Characterization of Amplifying Quantum-Cascade Metasurfaces
Currently at OmniML
Sandra Li
Alumnus (BS 2023)
Currently in grad school at Georgia Tech
Christopher Curwen
Alumnus (PhD 2019)
Thesis: Development of Terahertz Quantum-Cascade VECSELs
Currently at Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Luyao Xu
Alumnus (PhD 2017)
Currently at Google
Jiawei Wang
Alumnus (MS 2017)
PhD at UCSB. Currently at s.
Daguan Chen
Alumnus (BS 2017)
MS at UIUC, currently at Google.
Benjamin Burnett
Alumnus (PhD 2016)
Thesis: Design and Modeling of High Temperature Terahertz Quantum Cascade Lasers
Currently at Apple
Derrick Chu
Alumnus (BS 2015)
PhD at Georgia Tech, currently at Qualcomm.
Zhaowen He
Alumnus (MS 2022)
Philip Hon
Alumnus (PhD 2013)
Thesis: Beam Pattern Engineering of Metamaterial Terahertz Quantum-Cascade Devices
Currently at Northrop Grumman
Partia Naghibi
Alumnus (MS 2013)
Amir Ali Tavallaee
Alumnus (PhD 2012)
Thesis: Terahertz Quantum-Cascade Transmission-Line Metamaterials
Currently at SiLC Technologies.
Karan Mehta
Alumnus (BS 2010)
PhD at MIT, Currently Assistant Professor at Cornell.