Sven Bilen
Head, School of Engineering Design, Technology, and Professional Programs (SEDTAPP). Professor of Engineering Design, Electrical, and Aerospace Engineering
Research Focus: Spacecraft-plasma interaction; electrodynamic tethers; energy harvesting for aerospace platforms; plasma probes and measurement techniques; spacecraft systems; software defined radio; communications; interoperability; cognitive radio’ distributed wireless sensor networks; innovation in engineering design; and systems engineering.
Chief technologist, Center for Space Research Programs
Personal website: sedtapp.psu.edu/~sbilen
Sawyer Campbell
Associate Research Professor
Research Focus:
Personal website:
Chris Giebink
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Organic semiconductor optoelectronic and photonic devises and on optics for solar energy conversion; the intersection of optics and electronics, using a variety or organic and inorganic materials; and working with materials ranging from organic semiconductors to liquid crystals to colloidal quantum dots to address real-world problems.
Venkat Gopalan
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Research Focus: Understanding structure-property relationships in optical materials; developing quantitative nonlinear optical probes, and scanning probe microscopy tools to study electronic nanoscale and mesoscale structure in materials; and using this basic knowledge to design and demonstrate electro-optic and fiber based optoelectronic device.
Personal website: www.matse.psu.edu/gopalan
Lab website: www.mri.psu.edu/faculty/gopalan
Tim Kane
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Meteorology. Research Associate with the Applied Research Laboratory
Research Focus: Space weather; optical and RF propagation; remote sensing (instrumentation design, development, and deployment); communication; and atmospheric/oceanic modeling.
Personal Website: www.ee.psu.edu/Directory/FacultyInfo/Kane/KaneProfilePage.aspx
Lab Website: www.met.psu.edu/people/tjk7
I.C Khoo
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Theories and experiments in photonics devices; nonlinear- and electro-optics materials such as liquid crystals, fibers; and nano-structured and novel refractive metamaterials.
Personal Website: www.ee.psu.edu/Directory/FacultyInfo/Khoo/KhooProfilePage.aspx
Seong Kim
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Research Focus: Kim’s search interest lie in surface science and nano-engiineering, including fundamentals and applications of molecular lubrications by adsorbed molecules in ambient conditions, nanofabrications of organic functional materials via reaction-at-place, conducting polymer nanofibers and biocatalytic nanofibers, superhydrophobic coatings through one-step atmospheric plasma processes, understanding and controlling the initiation of propagation of surface defects on multicomponent silicate glasses, and non-linear optical characterization of meso-scale assembly of cellulose microfibrils in plant cell walls and lignocellulose biomass.
Personal Website: www.che.psu.edu/Faculty/Kim
Akhlesh Lakhtakia
Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in Engineering Science and Mechanics
Research Focus: Electromagnetic and optical scattering by complex objects; wave propagation in anisotropic and bianisotropic materials; surface multiplasmonics; composite materials; sculptured thin films; microfibrous multifunctional metamaterials; forensic science; and nano photonics.
Personal Website: www.esm.psu.edu/people/directory/resume.php?id=axl4
Lab Website: www.esm.psu.edu/~axl4
Zhiwen Liu
Professor Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Developing ways to further enhance our understanding of the ultrafast and ultrasmall world that exists in and around us; and using nonlinear optics and optical techniques to sense and image optical phenomena on the nano-femto scale along with development of novel and useful enhancements for nonlinear imaging and spectroscopy.
John Mazurowski
Chief Technologist
Research Focus: Photonics and optical communications; integrated optics; microwave photonics; silicon photonics; photonics device design; photonics; microwave engineering; and optics and photonics.
Lab website: Photonics at the Penn State Electro-Optics Center
Dave Miller
Research Scientist, Department of Meteorology
Research Focus: Atmospheric chemistry and the planetary boundary layer; general optics experience with specific knowledge of remote sensing with lidar and hydroxyl radical detection via laser induced fluorescence (LIF); and broad instrument design and construction knowledge, including data acquisition systems.
Personal Website: www.met.psu.edu/people/dom101
Ram Narayanan
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Radar system development; radar remote sensing applications; image analysis; antenna characterization; high resolution imaging using random noise radar; mid-infrared laser remote sensing technology; ground penetrating radar for transportation infrastructure assessment and the characterization of information content in remotely sensed images.
Personal Website: www.ee.psu.edu/Directory/FacultyInfo/Narayanan/NarayananProfilePage.aspx
Lab Website: rcl.ee.psu.edu
Xingjie Ni
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Nanophotonics and optoelectronics, electromagnetic metamaterials, optical sensing, transformation optics devices, integrated photonics, nonlinear optics, optical communications, sub-wavelength signal processing, photovoltaics, and optical quantum information processing.
Mikael Rechtsman
Assistant Professor of Physics
Research Focus: Complex structures and emergent physical phenomena in photonics, in service of novel or dramatically improved photonics devices.
Personal Website: www.phys.psu.edu/people/mcr22
Karl Richard
Research Associate, Applied Research Laboratory
Research Focus: 25 years of experience in the design and development of advanced measurement, control and monitoring systems. An Assistant Professor of Acoustics at Penn State and Head of the Condition-Based Maintenance at the University’s Applied Research Laboratory.
Slava Rotkin
Research Focus:
Amy Van Newkirk
Assistant Research Professor at Penn State Electro-Optics Center
Research Focus:
Doug Werner
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Theoretical and computational electromagnetics with applications to antenna theory and design, phased arrays, microwave devices, wireless and personal communication systems, wearable and etextile antennas, conformal antennas, frequency selective surfaces, electromagnetic wave interactions with complex media, metamaterials, electromagnetic bandgap materials, zero and negative index materials, fractal and knot electrodynamics, tilling theory, neural networks, genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization.
Personal Website: www.ee.psu.edu/Directory/FacultyInfo/Werner/WernerProfilePage.aspx
Lab Website: cearl.ee.psu.edu/
Jian Xu
Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Developing novel optoelectronic devices based on nanomaterials and nanofabrication techniques, by combining material syntheseis, device fabrication and characterization in order to optimize device performance.
Personal Website: www.esm.psu.edu/people/directory/resume.php?id=jxx10
Lab Website: www.personal.psu.edu/jxx10
Stuart Yin
Professor of Electrical Engineering
Research Focus: Massive optical memories; medical optics, photo refractive materials; optical computing; and fiber-optic communications.
Personal Website: www.ee.psu.edu/Directory/FacultyInfo/Yin/YinProfilePage.aspx
Mike Zugger
Senior Research Engineer, Senior Project Associate Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Research Focus: Electronics; space systems; electro-optics and lasers; and planetary science.
Lab website: Applied Research Lab – Materials & Manufacturing (MM) Division
Personal Website: astrobiology.nasa.gov/directory/people/zugger-mike/
For more information about PCSi or to become a member, contact us at pcsi@psu.edu.