NG Next – Team

Dr. Michael Barako is a Staff Scientist at NG Next with focused research efforts in the synthesis and transport properties of nanomaterials. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2016 and now leads experiments in both the fundamentals and the applications of thermal transport at the nanoscale. His areas of interest include heat transfer across interfaces, conduction phenomena in low-dimensional materials, and phase change heat transfer for devices ranging from thermal storage to microscale heat exchangers. Dr. Barako has one US patent issued and one filed on copper nanowire arrays for thermal management of microelectronics. He holds an appointment as an Assistant Project Scientist at UC Irvine and is a member of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Society, and American Society for Engineering Education.

Dr. Don DiMarzio is a Principal Scientist at NG Next, with a visiting user appointment at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL). His current research interests include directed nanomaterial assembly and 1D and 2D nonlinear transmission line metamaterials. Dr. DiMarzio’s research background includes graduate work on rare earth high pressure transport phenomena and postdoctoral work at the BNL National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). He is Vice Chair CFN Users Executive Committee, and Co‐Chair BNL NSLS/CFN Annual Users Meeting (2017). Dr. DiMarzio holds an Adjunct Professor appointment in the Department of Chemical and Molecular Engineering at Stony Brook and is a member of the American Physical Society and an advisory board member of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center (AERTC) at Stony Brook. He received his PhD in Physics from Rutgers.

Dr. Katherine Fountaine is a Staff Scientist at NG Next. Her current interests include passive and dynamic absorption and emission engineering using nanophotonics, metamaterials, and metasurfaces, and applying efficient optimization algorithms for inverse optical design. Dr. Fountaine holds 1 full and 2 provisional patents, and has authored 15 peer-reviewed articles cited over 150 times. She is a member of the Materials Research Society and holds a Visiting Researcher appointment in the Applied Physics Department at Caltech, where she works on multiple collaborative projects with the Atwater group, the Greer group, and JCAP; she also has collaborative projects with Prof. Bermel at Purdue and Prof. Ferry at UMinn. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Caltech in 2015 as an NSF fellow.

Dr. Vincent Gambin is a Principal Scientist and Group Lead at NG Next. He currently leads the New Semiconductors and Devices group in NG Next Basic Research, investigating new materials and devices for next generation electronics. He is also the principal investigator for DARPA’s ICECool Applications program developing high-power GaN MMICs cooled with embedded diamond microfluidics. Dr. Gambin has worked at Northrop Grumman for 14 years in the field of RF electronics, developing advanced GaAs, InP and GaN microelectronics. He received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Juan Garcia is a Principal Scientist at NG Next. His research focuses on active metamaterials, nonlinear optics and the optical characterization of materials and devices. Experimental work includes spectroscopy, interferometric technics and ultrafast experience. Before joining Basic Research, Dr. Garcia worked in the Lasers and Sensors Department and worked on high power pulsed solid state lasers. Work included development of illuminator and pulsed lasers in the NIR and MIDIR and the development of next generation laser sources for airborne applications. Dr. Garcia received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.

Dr. Philip Hon is a Staff Scientist and Group Lead at NG Next. His research interests include characterization of engineered nanostructured materials for active metamaterials in the RF through the IR regimes with an emphasis in application areas such as beam steering and shaping, thermal emission control, and breaking reciprocity. Dr. Hon holds 3 current and 2 provisional US Patents. He is the author of 11 peer‐reviewed journal articles, including IEEE Trans. Terahertz Science and Technology journal’s best paper of the year award. Dr. Hon is an active member of IEEE and MRS, and is Steering Committee Co‐Chair for IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Coastal L.A. Section. He is a journal reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation; IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters; IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation; Scientific Reports; and Nature Communications. Dr. Hon holds a Visiting Researcher appointment at Caltech in the Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in electromagnetics from UCLA.

Dr. Vladan Janković is a Senior Scientist at NG Next. His research focuses on the discovery, synthesis and characterization of novel nanomaterials for next generation photonic and plasmonic devices. He has published 6 journal articles, cited 185 times, and holds 1 US Patent, 1 provisional patent and 1 Northrop Grumman trade secret. He has served as a reviewer for Optics Letters, Journal of the Electrochemical Society and the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology and is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Materials Research Society and the Optical Society. He serves on the advisory board of the Chemical and Materials Science Department of the University of Nevada, Reno and has held Visiting Scholar appointments at Stanford, USC and Caltech. Dr. Janković received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Mark Knight is a staff scientist in the Non-equilibrium Excited State Dynamics group. Dr. Knight earned his Ph.D. at Rice University, working with Prof. Naomi J. Halas. His doctoral work focused on new plasmonic materials in the ultraviolet, and optoelectronics based on hot electrons resulting from plasmon decay. During his postdoctoral work, performed at the FOM Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands, he studied how nanostructures can be applied to simultaneously improve optical and electrical transport in photovoltaic devices.

Stéphane Larouche is a senior scientist in the Engineered RF Materials group, where he researches nonlinear and optical metamaterials. Until being hired at Northrop Grummam, he was an Assistant Research Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. He received B. Eng., M. A. Sc, and Ph. D. degrees in engineering physics from École polytechnique de Montréal in 2000, 2003, and 2008, respectively. During his graduate studies, his research concentrated on optical interference filters. He is the main author of the open source software OpenFilters for the design of optical coatings. At Duke University, as a Postdoctoral Associate, then a Research Scientist, and finally a Research Professor he studied many aspects of electromagnetic metamaterials.

Matthew O’Donnell is an Associate Researcher at NG Next. His research projects include orbital angular momentum mode recognition, single photon generation using hexagonal boron nitride (HBN) defects, and superconducting transition edge sensor (TES) for photon number resolving experiments. He holds a MS in Physics from California State University, Long Beach.

Dr. Vesna Radisic is a Principal Scientist and Group Lead at NG Next. Her research expertise is in the area of RF metamaterials, reconfigurable RF structures, nonlinear transmission lines, novel RF structures with 2D and nonlinear materials, and novel 3D printed RF structures. She has conducted original research in high frequency and THz electronics, high power microwave amplifiers, high frequency oscillators, high frequency packaging, and integration techniques of different technologies. Dr. Radisic received the 2007 Northrop Grumman Space Technology Innovation Award for 300 GHz InP HEMT Technology, 2007 IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT‐S) Outstanding Young Engineer Award, and 2012 IEEE MTT‐S “Tatsuo Itoh” Best Paper Award published in the IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters. She authored and co‐authored 34 journal and 29 conference papers. Dr. Radisic has 2 US Patents. She is a fellow of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) society. Dr. Radisic holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.

Dr. Randy Sandhu is a Senior Scientist at NG Next, investigating new materials and devices for next generation RF electronics. He has researched and published advanced characterization studies in high resolution x‐ray diffraction measurements and transmission electron microscopy of semiconductor materials. He also has broad experience in III-V compound semiconductor device fabrication techniques, having researched and developed device fabrication processes for wide band gap GaN HEMT devices. Dr. Sandhu has 6 US Patents and 4 Northrop Grumman trade secret awards. Dr. Sandhu has participated and led several SEMI Standards and ASTM Task Forces for compound group III-V semiconductor materials. He is a member of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society. He is also a vising researcher and lecturer at UCLA in the Materials Science and Engineering department. Dr. Sandhu received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UCLA.

Dr. Luke Sweatlock is the Director of Research for Materials and Devices in NG Next. His research interests include simulation, design, and characterization of plasmonic devices, and the interaction between light and nanostructured materials. Application areas of interest include novel devices for nanoscale optoelectronics, enhanced light harvesting for sensors and for energy conversion, and enhancement of nonlinear phenomena using plasmonic field localization. Dr. Sweatlock has published over 15 peer reviewed articles on plasmonic devices, metamaterials, and nanophotonic devices. He received his PhD in Applied Physics from Caltech.

Dr. Jesse Tice is a Principal Scientist and Group Lead at NG Next. His research interests include molecular chemistry, novel nanomaterials synthesis, and physical characterization of nanomaterials. Dr. Tice authored 12 peer-reviewed publications and has 9 patents pending. He is member of the American Chemical Society and Materials Research Society. Together with USC Prof. Andrea Armani, Dr. Tice is Co-Director of NG-ION2 at USC. He also holds a Visiting Scholar appointment in Electrophysics at USC. Dr. Tice received his PhD in Chemistry from Arizona State University.

Dr. Dale Durand was a Principal Scientist at NG Next. His projects included experimental demonstration of single photon emitters and an experimental demonstration of plasmon entanglement via a Bell Test. Dr. Durand has authored over 30 publications in the fields of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) of High Temperature Superconductors, superconducting electronics, and cryocoolers for space applications. He holds 8 US Patents and is a member of the American Physical Society (APS) and Cryogenic Society of America (CSA). Dr. Durand received his PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois.

Jimmy Hester was a part-time Staff Scientist at NG Next while he completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech. His concentration is in active and passive RF circuit design, with strong emphasis on passives and antennas. He received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from ENSEEIHT, Toulouse, France.

Dr. Trisha Hinners is a Senior Scientist and Group Lead at NG Next. Her primary research focus is on the chemistry and physics in the formation of planetary systems and exoplanet atmospheres. Dr. Hinners plans on leveraging her background in nuclear physics to understand some of the more elusive nuclear chemistry reactions that occur due to UV, X-rays, and Galactic Cosmic Rays in young stellar-exoplanet systems. Dr. Hinners was a NGIS Future Technical Leaders Program Graduate, a 2014 CTC Protégé, and held a NSF Women in Physics Fellowship from 2002-2006. She received her PhD in Physics from Florida State University.

Dr. Joshua Love is a Staff Scientist at NG Next. His research interests include Computer Vision, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping, Probabilistic Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Multi‐Agent Systems, and advanced Control Theory. He is a member of IEEE, ASME, AIAA, and AUVSI. Dr. Love received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley.

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Dr. Prineha Narang was a Staff Scientist and the Non-equilibrium and Excited State Dynamics Group Lead at NG Next as well as a Harvard Ziff Environmental Fellow at Harvard University. Her main research interests include theoretical descriptions of ultrafast dynamics, quantum photonics and development of computational methods at the intersection of condensed matter physics and optics. Dr. Narang received her PhD in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow and Resnick Sustainability Institute Fellow. Her doctoral thesis focused on understanding light-matter interactions in areas ranging from quantum plasmonics to nitride optoelectronics. Prior to Caltech, she worked with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights) on in situ TEM studies of energy storage devices.

Dr. William (Billy) Putnam is a staff scientist in the Non-equilibrium Excited State Dynamics group. His research has involved quantum-enhanced electron microscopy, cavity-enhanced high-harmonic generation, strong-field light-matter interactions near nanostructures, and most recently, electron-beam-driven light sources and electron beam waveguides. He received his S.B in Physics and S.B., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from MIT. Following his doctoral work, he held postdoctoral positions at the Center for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI) through the Universität Hamburg and at MIT.

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Dr. David Yeaton-Massey is a Staff Scientist at NG Next. His early work on bounding phase noise created in frequency doubling was used in the verification and validation of the Advanced LIGO control scheme, and is published in Optics Express and JOSA A. Inspired by his work with LIGO, Dr. Yeaton-Massey investigated ultra-stable silicon optical cavities at cryogenic temperatures. He was awarded his PhD in Physics from Caltech for this work.

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