Members

Research group - June 2022

Research group - June 2018

 I was born in Ontur, a small town in Albacete, Spain. I am currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of California, Davis. I am also the MS program director in the ECE Department. 

In 2006 I received the Telecommunications Engineer degree (with honors) from the Technical University of Cartagena (UPCT), Spain. Then, I joined the Telecommunication and Electromagnetic group (GEAT), UPCT, as a graduate research assistant. During the development of my PhD. I held visiting research positions at the ETA group of Poly-grames, École Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada, 1 year) and at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (Germany, 6 months). I received my PhD. in Electrical Engineering in 2011. In the academic course 2010-211, I worked as an assistant professor at UPCT. From October 2011 until March 2014 I was a postdoctoral fellow at the École Polytechnque Fédéral de Lausanne (Switzerland). Then, from May 2014 to August 2016, I continued my postdoctoral work in the Metamaterial and Plasmonic Research Laboratory of The University of Texas at Austin. My main research interests include multidisciplinary areas of electromagnetic wave propagation and radiation, non-reciprocal and nonlinear phenomena, novel 2D materials, plasmonics, metamaterials and metasurfaces, antennas, and other emerging topics on applied electromagnetics and nanotechnology. 

I am a UC Davis Chancellor's Fellow (class of 2023).  I am the recipient of a NSF CAREER award, the 2017 Leopold B. Felsen Award for Excellence in Electrodynamics given by the European Association of Antennas and Propagation, the Junior Raj Mittra Award presented by the 2015 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, the Young Scientist Award of the 2015 URSI Atlantic RadioScience Conference, a FP7 Marie Curie Fellowship from the European Commision in 2012, the Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación (COIT/AEIT) award to the best Spanish Phd. thesis in basic information and communication technologies in 2011, and the best Ph.D. thesis award from the Technical University of Cartagena (2011). My research has been funded by NIH, NSF, DoD-Army, SRC, and the Keck Foundation, among other agencies. I serve as a reviewer for many journals and conferences on engineering and physics.

Dr. Samaneh Pakniyat was born in Neyriz, Iran, in 1987. She received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Shiraz University, and the PhD degree from Shiraz University of Technology, Iran, in electrical engineering in 2010, 2014 and 2021, respectively. In 2018, she was a visiting researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. She earned her second Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2022. From 2011 to 2013, she was an adjoint professor at Azad University, Neyriz Branch, Iran. From 2014 to 2015, she was a teaching assistant at Shiraz University of Technology. From 2015 to 2018, she was an expert in communication systems in the Fars Provincial Department of Road and Transportation, Shiraz, Iran. She also worked as a graduate research assistant at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 2020 to 2022. She is currently a postdoctoral scholar at University of California, Davis, USA.  Her research interests are electromagnetics, plasmonics, nanophotonics, and quantum optics. 



Dr. Swati Pamar's research areas include 2D Materials/Oxide Metamaterials for electronic and photonic devices. She received a Ph.D., Electronics and Electrical Technology from Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2022 and a Master of Technology (M.Tech.), Nanotechnology from VIT University, Vellore, (T.N.), India, in 2015 



Ms. Melisa Gulseren received her B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2016, where she also pursued an M.S. degree. Her masters studies focused on wide bandgap devices, III-V nitride electronics, and fabrication of micro- or nano-structures. Since 2019, she has been working towards her PhD in University of California, Davis and her current research focuses on Applied Electromagnetics, Micro/Nano-Fabrication, Plasmonics, and MEMS. 


Mr. Luqi Wang received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Nankai University, China, in 2019. Currently he is a PhD candidate at University of California, Davis. He mainly focuses on how light interacts with different metamaterial and is working on the development of terahertz and far-infrared sources based on Cherenkov radiation in drift-biased artificial media.



Mr. Xu Han received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Microelectronics from Nankai University,  in 2014 and the Master of Science Degree in Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics from Peking University in 2018. Now, he is a graduate research assistant at the University of California, Davis. His research mainly focuses on breaking and engineering reciprocity in 2D materials through magnetless approaches and 2D materials-based novel photonic and optoelectronic devices.



Mr. Matthew Benson was born in Los Angeles, California. He received his B.S. in electrical engineering from UC Davis in 2021. His research interests include RF/THz/IR sensing and communications devices. His current focus is the design, fabrication, and characterization of IR sensors using RF MEMS and metasurfaces.





Mr. Damia Casas i Casajuana was born in Barcelona (Spain) and came to California in 2022. He earned his B.S. in Engineering Physics from UPC BarcelonaTech in 2022. His research is focused on nanophotonics, graphene metasurfaces and machine learning. He is currently working on the fabrication and characterization of graphene devices.






Mr. Zhixing Lin received his B.S. degree in Optoelectronics Information and Science from Beijing Jiaotong University in 2017 and M.S. degree in Physical Electronics from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2020. He is pursuing his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Davis. His research interests focus on the design, fabrication, and measurement of AlN-based MEMS devices used for spectrally-selective infrared sensors. 


Mr. Ryan Parker was born in sunny San Diego. I enjoy the beaches, motorcycles, and craft beers. I come from a family of engineers and pilots. I knew I wanted to be an engineer from a young age. I love to build and tinker with things. I have been coding and building circuits since the 9th grade. I also enjoy 3D printing and modeling. I have two lovely cats and a girlfriend who all annoy me constantly. I love working in a research lab. It is a rewarding job that I enjoy. As my favorite newscaster says: "You stay classy, San Diego." 



Mr. Gabriel Hernandez  is currently attending UC Davis working towards his Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Along with coursework, he actively participates in research pertaining to experimentation of measuring nanoscale optical forces and nanofabrication.   Before attending UC Davis, Gabriel was a research intern at Sandia National Labs working on nanofabrication of Metasurfaces and then characterization of semiconductor materials for Neuromorphic computing applications.   Prior to Sandia National Labs, he was also a research intern at UC Riverside, carrying out Electron-Beam Lithography and electrical measurements on Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUID’s).  Gabriel earned his Bachelors of Science in Engineering Physics from Santa Clara University in 2021. 


Ms. Theodora Triano is a first year M.S. student who is focusing on the applications of THz band frequencies for biomedical imaging and diagnostics. She earned her B.S. in electrical engineering from UC Davis and is the current graduate student representative for the Club of Future Female Electrical Engineers (COFFEE). Her specialties are within ultrafast photonics systems, numerical simulations, and applying novel optics designs to real world applications. Outside of research, she enjoys continuing her prior passions of music, audio engineering, and mechanical tinkering.


Mr. Scott Bricker was born in Columbus, Ohio. He received his certification of Electricity & Instrumentation from West Virginia University at Parkersburg and his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Davis. He is pursuing a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Davis. His research is focused on automating measurements for general device characterization wherein he has developed a graphical user interface in MATLAB for applied optics research. His research interests include embedded systems, frequency comb generators, and THz communication systems.



Ms. Mahsa  Alijabbari  is currently pursuing her research in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis as a Visiting Scholar. She received dual Bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics simultaneously from Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU), pursued an M.S. degree in collaboration with Sharif University of Technology (SUT), and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), having graduated at the top of her class in all degree programs. He research focuses on developing electromagnetic simulations and theories in the areas of Applied Electromagnetics, Plasmonic, and Metamaterials.


Mr. Arnau Fité Cluet was born in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. He is a final year student of Telecommunications Engineering at the Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya. He is a research scholar at the applied micro/nano-electromagnetics research laboratory at UC Davis to developed his final BSc thesis. He is a highly motivated person looking to pursue a research career in electromagnetics and physics.




Dr. Nayan Kumar Paul obtained his PhD (2022) in our group. He is now a senior engineer in Seagate. 




Dr. Diego Correas-Serrano obtained his MSc (2014) and PhD (2018) in our group. He is now a senior engineer in AMD.



 


Mr. Trevor Pollack obtained his MSc (2022) in our group. He is now an engineer in Naval Sea System Command (NAVSEA) 


 


Dr. Antonio Guillen carried out a 6-month visit in our group in 2021. He is now with HP research.





Dr. Jiawei Zang carried out a 1.5 year visit in our group in 2018-2019. He is now with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Beljing, China 


Prof. Alejandro Alvarez Melcon carried out a sabbatical year in our group in 2018.  He is full professor at the Technical University of Cartagena (Spain).



 


Mr. Mark Bourkov obtained his MSc (2020) in our group. He is now a senior engineer in Northrop Grumman . 


 



Ms. Yi Chang  carried out a 1.5 year visit in our group in 2018-2019. 






Mr. Sebastian Canovas-Carrasco  carried out a 3 month visit in our group in 2019-2020. 




 


Mr. Jesus-Alexis Torres obtained his MSc (2019) in our group. He is now a senior engineer in Northrop Grumman . 


 

 


Mr. Sergiton David obtained his MSc (2022) in our group. He is now an engineer in Skyworks.


 

 


Mr. Jeremy Rowe obtained his MSc (2020) in our group. 


 

 


Ms. Celia Gomez carried out a 3-month visit in our group in 2018. 


 

 


Prof.  Maria conception Santos Blanco carried out a sabbatical visit of 3 months in our group (2018).


 



Prof. Hwi Kim  carried out a sabbatical year in our group in 2018.  He is a full professor at the Seoul National University (South Korea).