People

Dr. Boriskina received her PhD degree in Physics and Mathematics from Kharkiv National University, Ukraine. Svetlana has authored over 130 publications and many patents, and has led multiple DoD, DoE, NATO, and industry-funded projects. She received a Joint Award of the International Commission for Optics and the A. Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, a NATO-UK Royal Society Fellowship, and a SUMMA Graduate Fellowship in Electromagnetics. She served as a Director-at-Large at the Optical Society (OSA), the Lead Editor for the Optics Energy & Environmental Express, and an Advisory Board Member for the Optics and Photonics News Magazine and the Journal of Optics.

MIT research & teaching profile Google Scholar profile

Dr. Vivian Santamaria-Garcia (Post-Doctoral Fellow)

Vivian is interested in the theoretical modeling of electron transport and electron transfer in molecular junctions and ultra-scaled materials based on organic, metallic, metal oxides and other semiconductor materials for sensing and energy harvesting applications. Her current research at MIT focuses on theoretical studies on the relationship between charge transport and mechanical strain of chalcogenide-derived materials to understand and predict electromechanical properties like flexoelectricity and piezoelectricity. She holds a Ph.D. in Nanotechnology from Tecnologico de Monterrey, in collaboration with Penn State University.

Dr. Ricardo Flores (Post-Doctoral Fellow)

Ricardo Flores specializes in polymer sciences, nanotechnology, and materials engineering, focusing on the design, testing, manufacturing, and characterization of polymer-based devices. His expertise extends to nanomaterials synthesis, micro- and nanofabrication, as well as polymer processing techniques such as injection molding and extrusion. Ricardo has taught courses on nanostructured materials and polymer engineering at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), where he earned his MSc and PhD in Nanotechnology. His academic contributions are complemented by his industrial experience, which includes roles at Henkel  and KEMET Electronics. He is keen on developing innovative multifunctional materials that incorporate novel manufacturing techniques, new materials, and biomimetics.

Dr. Nataliia Fihurka (Visiting Scholar)

Nataliia holds PhD in Polymer Chemistry from Lviv Polytechnic National University (Ukraine). Her PhD thesis was focused on synthesis and investigation of amphiphilic copolymers for drug delivery. Currently her research interest covers both synthetic and natural hydrogels for various applications and synthesis of functionalized polymers and nanoparticles. Nataliia works as a researcher at Uppsala University on biopolymer-derived materials for agricultural purposes and water treatment. She joined the MIT-META group for fall 2024 semester as an MIT-Ukraine GMAF fellow.

Simo Pajovic (Graduate Student)

Simo graduated from the University of Toronto in 2019 with a BASc in Mechanical Engineering and is currently a PhD candidate co-advised by Dr. Svetlana Boriskina and Prof. Marin Soljačić. His research focuses on light-matter interactions and how we can use novel materials to control them in mechanical engineering applications ranging from energy to medicine. Simo is a recipient of an MIT Presidential Fellowship, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a DOE SCGSR Fellowship, a SoE MathWorks Engineering Fellowship, and a winner of the 2022 Wunsch Foundation Silent Hoist and Crane Award for best SM thesis in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. Simo is a MechE Communication Lab Fellow. As of summer 2024, Simo is working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in his role as a DOE SCGSR Fellow, before returning to MIT in the fall.

Morgan Blevins (Graduate Student)

Morgan graduated from Harvey Mudd College in 2019 with a B.S. in Engineering and is currently a PhD candidate at MIT supported by the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory​. Her masters work at MIT focused on optical ​and photonic metamaterial devices for sensing in marine environments as well as the detection of viruses. Her current research focuses on light-matter interaction and electron transport in quantum materials, with applications in energy harvesting and photodetection via the photogalvanic effect, as well as non-reciprocal heat transfer. Morgan is an EECS Communication Lab fellow.

Duo Xu (Graduate Student)

Duo received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California San Diego in 2021 and is currently a PhD student & Graduate Research Assistant at MIT. His research in the META Lab focuses on the fabrication and optimization of multifunctional composite polyethylene-based materials for radiation shielding, thermoregulation, heat transfer, and solid-state refrigeration. Duo is a MathWorks Fellow.

Ikra Shuvo (Graduate Student)

Ikra is currently pursuing a PhD at MIT, co-supervised by Dr. Svetlana Boriskina and Dr. Joseph Paradiso. During his MSc at MIT, he specialized in microfabricating novel high-frequency (3-15 MHz) ultrasonic transducer arrays with wearable characteristics for imaging breast cancer, wireless energy transfer, and other biomedical applications. Ikra graduated from BUTEX with a BSc in Textile Engineering, specializing in Chemical Wet Processing. During his MS in Biosystems Engineering at the University of Manitoba and his MS in Textiles at the University of Alberta, he received UMGF fellowship and multi-year MITACS Canada fellowship.

Hannah Gold (Graduate Student)

Hannah graduated from Boston University in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a concentration in nanotechnology. She worked on CMOS technology for hardware Trojan detection in her undergraduate time and is experienced in digital logic design. During the course of her PhD she hopes to work on parameter optimizations for photonic device design and currently is working on maximizing nonreciprocal effects in planar structures. Hannah is a UCEM scholar and MIT Presidential fellow.

Abhishek Mukherjee (Graduate Student)

Abhishek graduated from Birla Institute of Technology and Science with a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering. His research interests lie in developing novel nanophotonic and semiconductor-based devices that can find applications in on-chip optoelectronics and photonic integrated circuits. Abhishek’s work at MIT focuses on strain-engineering of semiconductor materials for applications in photodetection, energy transfer, and light emission. Abhishek is a Siebel Scholar.

Amy Huynh (Graduate Student)

Amy graduated from UC Irvine with Bachelor’s degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering and worked full-time as an Operations Systems Engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the mission operations team for the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. At MIT, Amy is pursuing a dual Master’s in the Technology and Policy Program and AeroAstro, working on engineering spacesuit materials and sustainable textiles. Amy is an NSF graduate research program fellow.

Xianglin Ji (Graduate Student)

Xianglin graduated from Southern University of Science and Technology in 2023 with a B.S. in electrical engineering. During his senior year, he visited MIT as a special student and is now pursuing his master’s degree at MIT. His research interests include understanding and controlling light-matter interactions in engineering applications such as space shielding design and the development of degradation-resistant polyethylene fabrics. He was awarded the Tung GCF fellowship and intends to pursue a Ph.D. after completing his master’s studies.

Grace Smith (Graduate Student)

Grace graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2024 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. She is interested in materials for sustainable applications. As a master’s student in mechanical engineering, she is working on atmospheric water harvesting and plans to pursue a PhD. 

Ozgun Kilic Afsar (Graduate Student)

Ozgun is a Ph.D. student affiliated with the Tangible Media Group and the META Lab. Her research focuses on soft matter engineering, artificial skin and artificial muscles. Currently, she’s exploring soft robotic systems  in the context of motor skill acquisition and skill transfer, catering a symbiotic relationship between the body and the on-body interface where both are prone to change, learn from, and adapt to one-another over time. 

Mary Jane Schmuhl (Instructor)

Mary Jane is a designer and expert in industrial knitting and textile formation with decades of industrial experience at Ralph Lauren, Eddie Bauer, TJX, Gap, and the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA). MJ develops advanced textile designs for applications in military, healthcare and automotive applications, and shares her expertise with the students in 2.S990 Fiber & Textile Engineering class.

Connie Cheng (Instructor)

Connie graduated recently from the Rhode Island School of Design with a bachelor’s in industrial design.  She has worked previously as a material science researcher at the University of Waterloo and a UI/UX designer. At MIT she is working on research revolving around ML/AI and HCI, and also teaching in 2.S02.

Brady Cruse (Undergraduate Student)

Brady is an undergraduate at MIT studying Course 6-2, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has devoted considerable time to programming and designing electronic circuits. Brady’s primary passion is nanotechnology, which he intends to research at MIT. He is also interested in computer architecture and wireless technology. After completing his degree, Brady plans to pursue a Ph.D.

Jacqueline Wang (Undergraduate Student)

Jacqueline is a first-year undergraduate student at MIT pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She is interested in math, physics, programming, and circuit design. In high school, she tutored math and coding. The past winter, Jacqueline worked on a PCB design project for a hug-sensing plush. This spring, she is working on a UROP with Morgan and Brady, designing and building a sample stage for the scanning photocurrent microscope to obtain stable and accurate measurement.

Emma Scott (Undergraduate Student)

Emma is an undergraduate at MIT studying mechanical engineering. She has an interest in sustainability- a passion she recently pursued in a UROP with the Environmental Solutions Initiative collecting and categorizing climate policies from around the world. Outside of academics, Emma enjoys competing as a diver for the MIT Swim and Dive team. After completing her undergraduate degree, Emma plans to pursue an MEng.

Kate Zappa (Undergraduate Student)

Kate is a first-year undergraduate student at MIT planning on studying Mechanical Engineering (Course 2). She is interested in the applications of mechanical design with other fields and wants to explore her interests through research. She is working with Duo on the development of the multi-functional fabrics project, specifically with testing and data processing.

Richard Gu (Undergraduate Student)

Richard is an undergraduate student at MIT learning course 6-4 (Computer Science and AI). He is passionate about machine learning, and plans to explore more about the field through research. He is currently working on project involving textile generation, designing a machine learning model to produce heritage-inspired lace patterns with enhanced tensile properties.

Aubrey Cantrell (Undergraduate Student)

Aubrey is a Computer Science and Studio Art double major at the Wellesley College, who is applying these two skill sets and passions in working with the META lab, creating visual representations of how textiles are made, and demonstrating both the process and the woven patterns in a detailed manner. These representations are made through 3D rendering using applications like blender, and digital sketches. The purpose of these renders and drawings is to help the understanding of the design and creation of the textile making process more clear and understandable for other students, learning about the process.

Haejun Chung (Post-doctoral associate)

Haejun works in the areas of inverse design of nanophotonic devices, developing a fast inverse design algorithm and novel metasurfaces. He graduated with magna cum laude B. S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology in 2010, then obtained M. S. (2013) and Ph. D. (2017) degrees both from Purdue University, and held a post-doctoral position at Yale University prior to working at MIT in 2020-2021. Current Position: Assistant Professor, Hanyang University, Korea

Luis Marcelo Lozano (Post-doctoral associate)

Marcelo received his Ph.D. degree from the Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico). His work at MIT focused on the development of highly-conductive plastics and wearable multi-functional fibers/textiles for passive thermoregulation. Current Position: Professor, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico

Yoichiro Tsurimaki (Graduate Student)

Yoichiro received his B.E. and M.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Tohoku University in 2012 and 2015, respectively and earned an M.E. in Energy and Environmental Engineering from INSA de Lyon in 2014. His work at MIT focused on studying fundamentals of heat transfer mechanisms and nanoscale forces. Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

Buxuan Li (Graduate Student)

Buxuan’s research at MIT focused on understanding and tailoring energy transport in amorphous materials, especially polymers, using computational methods including molecular dynamics and first principle calculations. He was also interested in engineering polymers to have unconventional thermal properties and experimentally characterizes thermal conductivity of materials. Buxuan was a winner of an Evergreen Graduate Innovation Fellowship.

Richter Brzeski (Undergraduate Student)

Richter is an undergraduate at MIT studying electrical engineering and computer science. He has extensive background in software development. He is considering an MEng at MIT to further his understanding of electromagnetic phenomena and its applications.

Diego Delarue (Undergraduate Student)

Diego was a fourth-year undergraduate student at MIT double majoring in Computer Science and Literature (with a focus on film). Even though he started studying Aerospace Engineering wanting to focus on autonomous systems, Diego’s work in the META lab focused on machine learning.

M. Subhi Abo Rdan (Undergraduate Student)

Subhi did a UROP with the META lab during his second-year undergraduate studies at MIT, where he is double majoring in Physics and Computer Science. He participated in the International and the European Physics Olympiads in high school. Subhi is interested in theoretical physics, particularly in General Relativity and Quantum Physics and eager to delve into Quantum Gravity. For his CS major, Subhi is interested in computer architecture and systems design.

Shayna Ahteck (Instructor)

Shayna is a recent MechE graduate, a maker, and an engineer working on using generative AI for designing heritage-inspired lace materials with enhanced properties for smart textile applications.

Dr. Volodymyr (Vlad) Korolovych (Research Scientist)

Dr. Korolovych‘s work at MIT focused on fabrication and characterization of novel polymer fibers and textiles as well as on the deposition and testing of thin-film semiconductor materials for flexoelectric energy harvesting. He holds a PhD in Thermophysics and Molecular Physics from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and had post-doctoral training at Georgia Institute of Technology and Harvard University.

You Lyu (Visiting Graduate Student)

You Lyu was a visiting graduate student from Southern University of Science and Technology in China. His research at MIT focused on characterizing and fundamental understanding polymer properties for enhancement of elasto/twistocaloric effects in synthetic fibers and yarns.

Chanik Kang (Visiting Graduate Student)

Chanik was a visiting student from Soongsil University in South Korea, whose work at MIT was supported by the High-Potential Individual Global Training Program. He worked on computation-driven metasurface design using inverse design, deep learning, and adjoint method.

Munseong Bae (Visiting Graduate Student)

Munseong was a visiting student from Soongsil University in South Korea, whose work at MIT was supported by the High-Potential Individual Global Training Program. His research focused on the inverse photonic design and optical vortex manipulation for thin-film absorption enhancement.

Junyoung (Visiting Graduate Student)

Junyoung was a visiting student from Soongsil University in Korea, whose work at MIT was supported by the High-Potential Invidivual Global Training Program. Junyoung was applying photonic inverse design techniques to engineer and optimize photonic devices for biosensing, light focusing, and color sorting (such as e.g., CMOS image sensors).

Jungwoo Shin (Post-doctoral associate)

Jungwoo received his B.S. in Material Science and Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology, and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research at MIT focused on ultrafast spectroscopy and development of high-conductivity polymers. Current Position: Google

Boyu (Kevin) Duan (Visiting Undergraduate Student)

Boyu was a special student (senior) from Southern University of Science and Technology, who was supported by MIT-SUSTech Center. His interests spanned fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and nanomaterials. His research at MIT mainly focused on the Mechanics analysis of microcantilevers during snap-in process. Before coming to Boston, he studied at UC Berkeley as an exchange student.

Alice Vranka (Undergraduate Student)

Alice is an undergraduate student planning to major in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Engineering Management. Her work in the group focused on fabricating and engineering complex polymer yarns with a focus on maximizing chemical and mechanical recyclability.

Leslie Yan (Undergraduate Student)

Motivated by increasing sustainability of the textile and sports industries, Leslie has been working on a senior thesis focused on the development and testing of the concept of a monomaterial circular sneaker, which can be continuously recycled into a new generation of footwear.

Sehar Lohawala (Undergraduate Student)

Sehar did a UROP project in the group in 2022. She worked on a project that involved testing the thermal and elastocaloric properties of polyethylene yarns by applying various mechanical deformations to it, such as twisting and stretching.

Remington (Remi) Sandell (Undergraduate Student)

Remi did a UROP project in the group in 2022 and is majoring in mechanical engineering. She is interested in sustainability challenges and was working on a project involving testing flexoelectric solar cells for solar and thermal radiative energy generation.