People
Principal Investigator
Mengjie Yu
Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley
mengjie.yu [at] berkeley.edu | Website | Yu CV
- Bachelor at Zhejiang University, Optical Engineering, 2008-2012
- PhD at Cornell University, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2012 -2018
- Staff Research Associate at Columbia University, Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, 2015-2018
- Postdoc at Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Science, 2018-2021
Graduate Students
Clayton Cheung
4th year PhD student
cycheung [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: University of Arizona
- MS: University of Southern California
- Research Interests: Quantum and nonlinear photonics
Reshma Kopparapu
3rd year PhD student
reshma [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: University of Southern California
- MS: University of Southern California
- Research Interests: Integrated nonlinear photonics
Ran Yin
3rd year PhD student
ranyin74 [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
- MS: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Research Interests: Nonlinear photonics
Kaiwen Xue
2nd year PhD student*
kaiwenxue [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: University of California, Santa Barbara
- MS: University of Southern California
- Research interests: Optical computing and optical neural networks
*Jointly advised by Zaijun Chen
Kamila Kunes
2nd year PhD student
kunes [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: University of California, Los Angeles
- Research interests: Integrated photonics and optical computing
Mihir Chaudhari
1st year PhD student
mihirc [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: University of Texas at Austin
- Research interests: Integrated photonics, optomechanics
Postdoctoral Scholars
Chunho Lee
Visiting Scholar (2025 – Present)
Postdoc Fellow (2022 – 2025)
chunhol [at] berkeley.edu
- BS: Seoul National University
- MS: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
- PhD: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
- Postdoc: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
- Research Interests: Active on-chip devices
Xinyi Ren
Postdoc Fellow (2023 – Present)
xinyir [at] berkeley.edu
- BS in Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
- PhD in Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
- Research interests: Integrated photonics, electro-optic frequency comb, dual-comb spectroscopy, photoacoustic/optomechanical spectroscopy
Yue Yu
Postdoc Fellow (2023 – Present)
yyu0919 [at] berkeley.edu
- BS in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
- PhD in The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
- Research interests: Integrated photonics, optomechanics, and acoustic waves
Tushar Karnik
Postdoc Fellow (2025 – Present)
tkarnik [at] berkeley.edu
- BTech: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
- PhD: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Research interests: Non-linear integrated photonics
Ian Christen
Postdoc Fellow (2025 – Present)
- PhD: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergraduate Students
Jiahe Wang
3rd year undergraduate student (2025 – Present)
lucifer_wang [at] berkeley.edu
Research interests: Nonlinear optics, quantum computing and finance
Achyut Chebiyam
3rd year undergraduate student (2025 – Present)
achebiyam [at] berkeley.edu
Research interests: Optical computing and quantum optics/sensing
Alumni
Jacob Morentz
Undergraduate student (2025 – 2025)
mcmorentz [at] berkeley.edu
Research Interests: Nonlinear photonics
Yuanhao Liang
Masters student (2023-2025)
Shaoyuan Ou
Masters student (2022 – 2024)
Anoushka Narayan
CURVE program undergraduate student (2022 – 2024)
Eric Zhong
CURVE program undergraduate student (2022 – 2024)
Juan Antonio Estevez – de la Riva
CURVE program undergraduate student (2022 – 2023)
Aidan Parris
CURVE program undergraduate student (2023 – 2024)
ajparris [at] usc.edu
- Research Interests: Integrated photonics and device simulation
Ruozhou (James) Wang
CURVE program undergraduate student (2022 – 2024)
jwang369 [at] usc.edu
- Research Interests: Optoelectronics and integrated photonics
We are currently looking for PhD students and interns with passion towards nanophotonics and nonlinear optics!