Professor Lisa V. Poulikakos
Principal Investigator
Email: lpoulikakos[at]eng.ucsd.edu
Office: EBU II 358
Lisa Poulikakos is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego. She received her PhD in Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zürich, where she studied with Professor David Norris. Her thesis, titled “Chiral Light–Matter Interactions in the Near and Far Field” introduced an original theoretical and experimental technique to enable the rational design of chiral nanophotonic systems. Her postdoctoral research in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University in the group of Professor Jennifer Dionne, focused on developing functional nanophotonic surfaces for all-optical, on-chip and label-free cancer tissue diagnostics. She is a recipient of the ETH Medal, awarded to outstanding doctoral theses, the L’Oréal USA For Women in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship. Among the leadership positions she has held, she served as Chair of the 2018 Gordon Research Seminar in Plasmonics and Nanophotonics and was the founder and first president of the student-outreach organization “LIMES” at ETH Zürich.
Group Members
PhD students
Zaid Haddadin
Zaid Haddadin (he/they) is a PhD student in the electrical & computer engineering department at the Poulikakos Lab at UC San Diego. He holds bachelor’s degrees in biology and computer science from Purdue University and a master’s degree in electrical engineering, with a medical devices specialization, from UC San Diego. He’s motivated to utilize Earth’s most abundant resource, light, towards low-cost, accurate, and rapid medical diagnostics for resource-starved environments. In accordance, his primary research projects focus on investigating how the geometric symmetry violations of nanostructures in metasurfaces can enhance light-matter interactions, and how to leverage those effects for a quantifiable detection of fibrotic and misfolded-protein disease states.
In his “off” time, Zaid likes to write, run, or just be outdoors trying to figure out how to do aerials & other flips. He wrote first-drafts of novels as part of the National Novel Writing Month and hopes to one day run a marathon in Antarctica. He’s also a big fan of tea.
Julia Holland
Julia Holland is a Ph. D student majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Materials Science and Solid Mechanics at UC San Diego. She began her undergraduate studies at Moorpark College before transferring to UC Davis, where she graduated with Honors in 2022 with her Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. From the spring of 2021 to the summer of 2022, Julia worked as an intern at Teledyne Imaging Sensors where she developed engineering drawings and designed tooling used on sensors.
Julia joined the Poulikakos Lab in September 2022, where she will be studying the photoacoustic effect with applications in super-resolution imaging. In her free time, Julia enjoys painting, reading, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Moisés Humberto Ibarra Miranda
Moisés Ibarra is a PhD student in the Materials Science and Engineering program. He graduated in 2023 with a B. S. in Nanotechnology Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey. As an undergraduate, he did research on two-photon absorption polymerization phenomena as a fabrication method for micro- and nanostructure with a lab-built setup. Moisés additionally did research work focused on thermoelectric materials for sustainable energy materials.
At Poulikakos Lab, his main research interests involve the optical and thermal properties of metasurfaces with potential applications in health-care, energy systems, and thermal management. In his free time, Moisés enjoys reading, running, and spending time with family and friends.
M.S. students
Shahrose Khan
Shahrose Khan is a Master’s student majoring in Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego. He holds a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from UCSD as well. Prior to his transfer to UCSD, he served four years as an Army medic at Fort Carson, CO. In the summer of 2022, he participated in the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program, where he was in a structures team that maintains aerospace assets. Starting Fall 2023, Shahrose is a guest investigator at APL for NASA’s DragonFly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. He will be creating a library of select surface features from across the solar system. The library will be used by DragonFly team to interpret future images of Titan’s surface.
Shahrose joined Poulikakos and Boechler Labs in the Summer 2021 under the MAE 199 program during his undergraduate. He is studying Color Theory and exploring nanophotonic solutions that can aid anomalous trichromacy – a form of color vision deficiency. Shahrose uses his free time to play Tennis, Soccer, and League of Legends
Dev Shah
Dev Shah is a Master’s student in the Mechanical Engineering department at UC San Diego. He obtained his B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pandit Deendayal Energy University in 2021. During undergrad, Dev was part of an ATV design & development group where they built gasoline and an electric all-terrain vehicle from the ground up and went racing against 150 other teams, and stood first in design. He was also part of a research group of Professor Dr. Krunal Mehta where they worked on design and fabrication techniques for jointless compliant surgical grippers at point-of-care to reduce variations in gripping forces for different patients. After graduation, Dev was working as a New Product Development Engineer at Mediscient Devices Pvt. Ltd. where he designed novel mechanisms for Injectable medical devices like Autoinjectors, Needle-Safety Injections, and a wearable smart insulin injector.
As part of the Poulikakos Lab, Dev will be working towards the fabrication of 3D-architected metasurfaces using additive manufacturing for the visualization of fibrous media.
Paula Kirya
Paula Kirya is a Master’s student at UC San Diego, studying Mechanical Engineering. She graduated from UCSD with a degree in Bioengineering in June 2023. Paula joined the Poulikakos Lab in August 2021 and has been working on studying and developing new ways to apply structural color in nature-inspired colorimetric metasurfaces to detect disease in biological tissue. During her undergraduate years, Paula delivered plenary talks at the Stanford Research Conference and Harvard’s National Collegiate Conference.
Her master’s research is being funded by the Optica Amplify Scholarship, the Optica Women Scholarship, and the AAUW Selected Professions Fellowship. In her free time, Paula enjoys dancing, reading, and watching movies with her friends.
Loren Phillips
Loren is a Master’s Student in the NanoEngineering Department. He graduated in 2023 with a B.S. in NanoEngineering from UC San Diego. As an undergraduate, he worked on manufacturing and characterization of nature-inspired photonic structures.
His Master’s research is in collaboration with Poulikakos Lab. As part of UCSD’s Morimoto Lab under the Contextual Robotics Institute, Loren focuses on developing a robotic platfrom to apply nanophotonic metasurfaces.
In his free time, Loren rows for the Men’s Rowing team, surfs, and enjoys cooking.
Hy Cao
Hy Cao is a Master’s student majoring in Material Science at UC San Diego. He obtained his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from SDSU. During his undergraduate he worked on small unmanned autonomous submarines to compete in the RoboSub competition with the SDSU Mechatronics team. After graduating he spent several years as a service engineer working on photolithography and bio-automation machinery.
An interest in materials and a desire to work with them in the semiconductor and bio-automation industries led him to pursue an MS degree. His master research is a joint project between the Poulikakos and Saha Labs on super resolution structured illumination fluid flow imaging. In his spare time, Hy enjoys cooking, photography, astrophotography, and relaxing at cafes.
Undergraduate Students
Anna My Nguyen
Anna is a third-year undergraduate student at UC San Diego majoring in Mechanical Engineering interested in medicine. During her time at UC San Diego, she has been involved in Summer Bridge, the Teaching + Learning Commons, and the Makerspace.
Anna joined the Poulikakos Lab in September 2021. She is very excited to help develop the connection between medicine and engineering. She is currently studying chiral nanostructures and its applications on metasurfaces. In her free time, she enjoys going to concerts and watching movies.
Parth Jha
Parth is a third-year undergraduate student at UC San Diego majoring in Mechanical Engineering with interests in color theory and nanophotonics. He is the co-founder of The Gream Project where he applies design solutions to environmental issues in Nepal.
Parth joined the Poulikakos Lab in January 2023 and is currently exploring nanophotonic solutions for color vision deficiency. In his free time, he likes to play guitar and binge watch Modern Family.
Lars Osterberg
Lars is a third year undergraduate student at UC San Diego majoring in Mechanical Engineering with an interest in materials science.
Lars joined the Poulikakos lab in October 2023. He is interested in studying nanostructures and how they can be engineered for use in the medical field. In his free time, he likes to run, surf, and play basketball with friends.