PhD Students
Zaid Haddadin
Zaid Haddadin (he/they) defended his dissertation in 2025, 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.
M. S Students
Jebin Joshua Moses
I joined UCSD with a B. Tech degree in Chemical Engineering and research experience in plant economics from Anna University (AC Tech Campus). During my undergraduate, I was juggling many extracurricular activities which gifted me the opportunity to be the President of the college’s Entrepreneurship Cell, Capitalize, and the Head of the Chemical Engineering Department’s student body while playing soccer for the college team.
In my first year of MS program, I was part of the Pokorski Lab and was working with polymers and ‘Click’ chemistry for targeted drug delivery for cancer. Now I will be working on the Nanofabrication of All-Optical Platform for Rapid, Precise and Low-Cost Cancer Tissue Diagnostics in the Poulikakos Lab. In my free time, I love to play open-world computer games (Cheers to Runescape) and soccer. Go Chelsea! KTBFFH!
Jebin is currently working as a TD Etch engineer at Intel.
Aniket Puri
Aniket S. Puri joined Poulikakos Lab in September 2020. He obtained his B.E. (Hons) degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in Chemical Engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he worked in Prof. Karthik Chethan V’s lab studying the thermodynamic effects of electrospinning on the biopolymeric zein matrix and different inorganic encapsulants. He was also a part of collaborative research in haemoglobin quantification for point of care applications in Prof. Suman Kapur’s lab.
His research in Poulikakos Lab focuses on building a tissue engineering platform to model breast cancer tissue and subsequently establishing a microscopy-based diagnostic correlation between tissue morphology and disease. His research interests include tissue engineering, therapeutics and diagnostics. In his free time, he likes reading fiction, history or playing badminton.
Aniket defended his Master’s thesis September 2021, is an engineer in the industry.
Samantha Bordy
Samantha Bordy received her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Her previous research experience is in the development of microfluidic devices for modeling the lymphatic system as part of Dr. Susan Thomas’s Lab. Through that research, she received the President’s Undergraduate Research Award and Grant. During her undergraduate experience, Sam worked as a TA and tutor for both the math and mechanical engineering departments.
As part of the Poulikakos Lab, she worked on the design and fabrication of nanophotonic surfaces as they relate to drug screening techniques and in relation to cancer treatment methods. In her free time, she likes to read, write, crochet, and spend time with friends outside.
Sam successfully passed the qualification exam and acquired her Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. She is currently a physics instructor at La Jolla Country Day School.
Jiuk Byun
Jiuk Byun received her B.A. in Chemistry with High Honor and minor in Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College in 2020. She has been awarded the Dr. Mary P. Dole Medical Fellowship. She conducted her undergraduate research with Professor Wei Chen and developed a novel procedure of spin coating polydopamine thin films with her peers. The other research was with Professor Dirk Englund’s group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a part of the simultaneous annealing and irradiating system development for nitrogen-vacancy center formation in diamonds. After graduating, she researched coatings and carbonization of nature-inspired polymer materials in Professor Haeshin Lee’s lab at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Jiuk’s project involves wavefront shaping utilizing the photoacoustic effect. Outside the lab, she enjoys cooking and taking photographs.
Jiuk successfully acquired her Master’s and is continuing her research chemistry and material science.
Loren Phillips
Loren 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 was 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.
Dev Shah
Dev Shah was 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 worked towards the fabrication of 3D-architected metasurfaces using additive manufacturing for the visualization of fibrous media.
Shahrose Khan
Shahrose Khan majored 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 studied 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
Goeun Han
Goeun Han completed her bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at UC San Diego and continued as a Masters student in ME. During her bachelors, she worked with otolaryngology surgeons at UCSD Health to research thermal imaging for cancer diagnosis and worked at illumina imaging DNA with the use of fluidics. She is currently working at ASML Source Research doing materials research on the Droplet Generator and teaches physics to undergraduates. After joining the Poulikakos lab in fall of 2024, she did research in fluid-assisted particle assembly for optical effects.
In her free time, she enjoys walking dogs, building legos, and collecting stationary.
Hy Cao
Hy Cao majored 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.
Alex Parrish
Alex majored in Mechanical Engineering at UC San Diego, where he also earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. During his undergraduate degree, he designed and built model rocketry with Rocket Propultion Laboratories at UCSD. He also led an engineering outreach program teaching engineering lessons to schools in San Diego.
His master’s research is in tandem with Hy Cao and a joint project between the Poulikakos and Saha labs, focused on super resolution structured illumination fluid flow imaging. He enjoys cooking, surfing, playing guitar & singing, and reading.
Geetika Maddirala
Geetika did her masters in Bioengineering at UC San Diego, with a B.Eng in Biomedical Engineering. During her undergraduate studies, she worked on flexible e-skins and 3D bioprinting. Her master’s research focuses on leveraging the microstructure of scarab beetles for biosensing applications. Outside of lab, she enjoys drawing, hiking, and traveling.
Undergraduate Students
Dae Yong (Joshua) Kim
Joshua Kim majored in Mechanical Engineering with an interest in pre-med. In the past, he was involved in various clubs such as IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and JUMP (Jacobs Undergraduate Mentorship Program). Over the summer, he participated in the HardwareNxt program and learned about engineering design skills.
Joshua joined the Poulikakos Lab in August 2021. He is excited to be part of the research and apply his engineering knowledge to the medical field. He worked with Zaid on computing the most optimal metasurface geometries.
Chris Park
Chris Park studied Mechanical Engineering (Class of 2022). He also worked in the Rocket Propulsion Laboratory Club at UCSD. His past research experience was working at the Bio-Inspired Robotics and Design Lab, where he focused on creating a feedback control system for micro-robotic joints. He now know exploring his interest in biology applications within mechanical engineering.
Chris joined the Poulikakos Lab in June 2021. Chris is interested in the development of biotechnology to learn how it could be used for future medical device applications. He is interested in learning about the new topic of nanophotonics and how they can be use for structural tissue diagnosis.
Chris is currently studying abroad at Lund University in Sweden.
Trinity Pike
Trinity Pike majored in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Humanities at UC San Diego. She was a researcher for Project Lim[b]itless, an initiative that aims to make prosthetic limbs more accessible and affordable. Additionally, she is a Co-President for Engineers Without Borders at UCSD, a writer for Out in STEM at UCSD, and a member of several engineering outreach programs.
Trinity joined the Poulikakos Lab in December 2020. She is excited to assist the other team members with their research projects. Trinity is interested in exploring novel materials for medical devices using additive manufacturing and nanotechnology. In the future, she hopes to study bioengineering and become a research and development engineer.
Trinity is currently working as a Technical Solutions Engineer at Epic.
Dhruv Parmar
Dhruv Parmar majored in Cell and Molecular Biology at UCSD. He transferred to UCSD in Fall of 2020 from Las Positas Community College. There he did an independent research study on how different environmental conditions affected the activity of Calypte anna (Annie’s hummingbirds).
Dhruv joined the Poulikakos Lab in December 2020 and while he hasn’t been able to be incredibly active due to the pandemic, he helped over the summer with the research done by the rest of the team. He was especially excited to work with Aniket on anisotropic materials and is thrilled to bring his biological expertise to the table. In the future, he hopes to use his experiences here to aid him in his inevitable graduate research.
Anna My Nguyen
Anna majored in in Mechanical Engineering, UCSD (Class of 2024) and is 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 was very excited to help develop the connection between medicine and engineering. She studied chiral nanostructures and its applications on metasurfaces. In her free time, she enjoys going to concerts and watching movies.
Parth Jha
Parth majored in Mechanical Engineering, UCSD (Class of 2024) 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 explored nanophotonic solutions for color vision deficiency. In his free time, he likes to play guitar and binge watch Modern Family.
Lars Osterberg
Lars majored in Mechanical Engineering, UCSD (Class of 2024) 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.