Leadership
Arun Bansil, Director
University Distinguished Professor of Physics
Professor Bansil is a University Distinguished Professor in physics at Northeastern University (NU). He is the Director of Northeastern University’s Quantum Material and Sensing Institute (QMSI) and the co-Director of Northeastern University’s Experiential Quantum Advancement Laboratories (EQUAL). He served for over two years at the US Department of Energy managing the flagship Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics program (2008-10). He is an academic editor of the international Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids (1994-), the founding director of NU’s Advanced Scientific Computation Center (1999-), and serves on various international editorial boards and commissions. He has authored/co-authored over 400 technical articles and 18 volumes of conference proceedings covering a wide range of topics in theoretical condensed matter and materials physics, and a major book on X-Ray Compton Scattering (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004).
Swastik Kar, Deputy Director
Professor of Physics
Professor Kar is an experimental condensed matter physicist interested in the science and applications of 2D Quantum Materials. He is the Director of Northeastern University’s Experiential Quantum Advancement Laboratories (EQUAL), the Deputy Director of Northeastern University’s Quantum Materials and Sensing Institute (QMSI), and is involved in several quantum-related research, education and infrastructure initiatives at Northeastern. He has received several research, teaching, and research-translation awards and recognitions. Kar is an ex-Editorial Board member of Scientific Reports (Springer Nature) and currently serves on the Editorial Board of Materials for Quantum Technologies (IOP). He co-founded Guardion, a start-up translating NSF-funded research to develop multi-functional sensors and detectors. Kar strives to create a discrimination-free, inclusive academic environment that celebrates diversity and promotes the under-represented in STEM.
Core Faculty Members
Ning Bao
Assistant Professor of Physics and Mathematics
Professor Bao is a theoretical physicist interested in string theory, holography, and quantum information science. He was a developer of the holographic entropy cone, and has pursued research relating quantum information theoretic ideas to string theory and holography. He has also studied the use of machine learning methods for classifying entanglement in quantum information science.
David Budil
Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Professor Budil’s research interests include the utilization of magnetic resonance to characterize the dynamics of biopolymers and synthetic polymers in a range of contexts including protein structure and function, drug discovery, drug delivery, and membrane physics.
Hai-Ping Cheng
Professor of Physics
Professor Cheng’s research concerns the computational simulation of nanostructures, including nanowires and nanotubes. Professor Cheng was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), after a nomination from the APS Division of Computational Physics, for insights from pioneering nanoscale simulations, notably on cluster phase transitions,surface melting, and nanocrystal-surface interactions, especially the interplay between structure and dynamics and between structure and conductance.
Marco Colangelo
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Colangelo’s research interests include applied superconductivity and microwave engineering, such as the development of nanoscale devices in the superconducting regime operating at microwave frequency for application in cryogenic signal processing and quantum computing, light-superconductor interface, including free-space SNSPD, waveguide-integrated SSPD, and their application in communication, astronomy and biomedicine, the integration of nanoscale devices on photonic, acoustic, and electromechanical platforms, and nanofabrication technology.
Alberto De la Torre
Assistant Professor of Physics
Professor De la Torre’s research focuses on understanding complex emergent phenomena in quantum materials and engineering new long-lived quantum states by interacting with matter at ultrafast timescales. His research combines in-house optical and photo-emission tools with experiments at synchrotron and free electron lasers worldwide.
Ivana Dimitrova
Assistant Professor of Physics
Professor Dimitrova is an experimental atomic physicist working on quantum information science. Her research is focused on developing photonic interfaces for neutral atom arrays for modular quantum computing and quantum networking. Fast high-fidelity quantum channels between Rydberg atom array modules can become the basis for large-scale fault-tolerant quantum information processors.
Sijia Dong
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology & Affiliate Faculty of Physics and Chemical Engineering
Professor Dong is a computational chemist that uses first principles simulations, AI, and quantum computing to accelerate chemical discovery. Her group studies large, complex, and dynamical systems where in principle both quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics need to be applied. They develop and apply physics-based and data-driven computational methods on both classical and quantum computers to understand the multiscale processes of such systems, from electronic structures to emergent and macroscopic properties, and develop design strategies for molecules, materials, and processes that matter in renewable energy, biomedicine, and quantum information science. Prof. Dong has been selected as a Scialog Fellow for Automating Chemical Laboratories by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and obtained the Northeastern University College of Science Excellence in Mentorship Award in 2024, and she serves as one of the two Chairs of the inaugural Early Career Board of the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation.
Adrian Feiguin
Professor of Physics
Professor Feiguin’s field of expertise is computational condensed matter, focusing on quantum mechanical problems with strong correlations. He conducts research on several topics ranging from quantum transport, to exotic phases of matter in cold atom systems. In highly correlated problems, analytical techniques are difficult to control and many times lead to misleading results. To deal with these problems, Prof. Feiguin uses advanced and sophisticated numerical methods inspired by quantum information and machine learning concepts to unveil the underlying mechanisms behind these complex phenomena. In broad terms, the research topics being studied in Prof. Feiguin’s group are time-dependent and non-equilibrium quantum behavior, electronic and spin transport in mesoscopic systems, exotic phases in ultracold atomic gases, quantum magnetism in low dimensions, exotic quantum phases of matter, including superconductivity, and the development of new methods and algorithms.
Gregory A. Fiete
Professor of Physics
Professor Fiete is a theoretical physicist interested in topological and many-body phenomena in quantum materials. His work is driven by a desire to understand emergent behaviors arising from the interactions between electrons, lattice degrees of freedom, and light. Prior and current areas of interest include Luttinger liquids, fractional quantum Hall effects, a wide variety of topological materials (time-reversal invariant topological insulators, topological crystalline insulators, Weyl and Dirac semimetals, etc), quantum magnetism, and superconductivity. Nonequilibrium phenomena and nonlinear responses are current active themes of research in his group. Professor Fiete received his PhD in physics from Harvard University, and did postdoctoral work at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He was a Lee A. DuBridge Prize Fellow in Theoretical Physics at Caltech. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DARPA Director’s Fellowship, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a Simons Fellowship in Theoretical Physics, and a Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. He enjoys working with and mentoring junior researchers.
Kin Chung Fong
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Fong is a condensed matter experimentalist, quantum engineer, and inventor. His interdisciplinary research uniquely bridges fundamental physics and engineering. His group investigates the fundamental physics of quantum material platforms, such as graphene, topological insulators, Weyl semimetals, and superconductors, and applies these discoveries to engineer innovative quantum devices, including single-photon detectors, quantum noise amplifiers, and qubit systems. In turn, he harnesses these devices to develop advanced experimental techniques, enabling the discovery of novel physical phenomena such as electron hydrodynamics, pairing mechanisms in unconventional superconductors, and dark matter axions.
Vincent G. Harris
Univ Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Harris is a University Distinguished Professor and William Lincoln Smith Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University. His research interests include functional materials used in high frequency applications such as sensors, radar, and communication platforms, nanotechnology, power electronics, and medical diagnostics and therapeutics.
Xiaoning "Sarah" Jin
Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Professor Jin’s expertise lies in developing models for analyzing and assessing the performance and conditions of engineering assets in smart manufacturing and complex engineering systems. She provides predictive and adaptive decision support tools for optimal operations, maintenance, and control using sensor data analytics, machine learning, and Industrial AI. Professor Jin has received numerous awards including National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2020 Constantinos Mavroidis Translational Research Award, College of Engineering, Northeastern University, 2020; ASME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, 2016. She is also the director of the MS in Advanced and Intelligent Manufacturing program at Northeastern University.
Yongmin Liu
Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering & Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Liu specializes in photonics, materials, applied physics, and engineering at nano and quantum scales. His notable contributions include the development of novel plasmonic devices for manipulating surface plasmon polaritons, ultrafast all-optical control of magnetization, multifunctional metamaterials/metasurfaces, and photonic design enabled by artificial intelligence. These research results have been published in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Photonics, Nature Nanotechnology, and Physical Review Letters, with the potential to significantly advance quantum materials and quantum information science. Prof. Liu was the recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, SPIE Rising Researcher Award, 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, as well as Faculty Fellow of College of Engineering and Søren Buus Outstanding Research Award at Northeastern University. He was elected as a Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA) and SPIE in 2023.
Steven A. Lopez
Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Professor Lopez is a computational chemist interested in light-responsive molecules and materials. His group uses quantum mechanical calculations and machine learning techniques to understand the properties and mechanisms of light-initiated processes. He is currently the director of graduate studies and chairman of the Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering.
Hossein Mosallaei
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Affiliate Professor of Physics
Professor Mosallaei is the Director of Metamaterials Laboratory at Northeastern University. His focus is on theory, computational modeling and optimization of electromagnetic materials and devices. His group has extensive research experiences in active and time modulated photonics, plasmonics, and quantum materials and systems. He also works on multiscale and multiphysics materials simulation, design, and machine learning , leading to various applications including sensing and imaging. Prof. Mosallaei was 2011 College of Engineering nomination for Northeastern University’s Excellence in Research and Creativity Award. He has been TPC and special sessions organizer for various conferences in the areas of nano-electromagnetics and metamaterials. He was former Associate Editor for AWPL and on Editorial Board for Scientific Reports. He and his group have received research awards including IEEE AP-S prize for best student paper, URSI Young Scientific Award, and SPIE Optics + Photonics. He has more than 200 Journal articles and conference proceedings.
Sanjeev Mukerjee
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Professor Mukerjee’s research encompasses solid state chemistry, spectroscopy, and electrochemistry of electrode materials for electrochemical energy conversion and storage. His current focus is targeted towards technologies for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells and for batteries, these encompass electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction, CO tolerance and methanol oxidation reactions, elevated temperature polymer electrolyte membranes, advanced rechargeable batteries with nickel metal hydrides and lithium insertion electrodes for lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries.
Sarah Ostadabbas
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Ostadabbas is the director of the Augmented Cognition Laboratory (ACLab) with the goal of enhancing human information-processing capabilities through the design of adaptive interfaces via physical, physiological, and cognitive state estimation. Professor Ostadabbas is the co-author of more than 70 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles. Professor Ostadabbas is also an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Sensors Letters and Digital Biomarkers Journal, and has been serving in several signal processing and machine learning conferences as a technical chair or session chair.
Srinivas Sridhar
University Distinguished Professor of Physics & Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering
Professor Sridhar is a University Distinguished Professor of Physics, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University. His research spans across nanomedicine, neurotechnology, and Quantitative MRI. He has made significant contributions in nanophotonics, metamaterials, quantum chaos, superconductivity, and collective excitations in materials. He directs the Nanomedicine Innovation Center, focusing on developing new materials and devices for nano-, info-, and bio-technologies. He has published over 450 journal articles, patents, and technical reports. His paper in Nature in 2003 was listed among the Breakthroughs of 2003 by the journal Science. His research has been funded by various organizations, including NSF, NIH, and DoD. Sridhar is an elected fellow of NAI, AIMBE and APS.
Paul Stevenson
Assistant Professor of Physics
Professor Stevenson is an experimentalist interested in understanding the nanoscale dynamics of condensed matter systems. His research uses point defects in diamond as ultrasmall quantum sensors to probe dynamics in systems ranging from complex multiferroic materials to solution-phase chemical and biological systems.
Nian Sun
Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Sun’s research interests include novel magnetic, ferroelectric and multiferroic materials, devices and microsystems, novel gas sensors and systems. He has over 280 publications and over 30 patents and patent applications. Professor Sun has given over 180 plenary/keynote/invited presentations and seminars. He is an editor of Sensors, and IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, and a fellow of the IEEE, Institute of Physics, and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Eugene Tang
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Professor Tang is a quantum information theorist who is primarily interested in provably efficient schemes for quantum computation. He is currently focused on understanding high-rate quantum LDPC codes using homological techniques and designing efficient fault-tolerant schemes for quantum computation. His general research interests span many facets of quantum information theory, and previous topics he has worked on include: asymptotically good quantum LDPC codes, the applications of quantum information theory to high-energy physics and holography, provable guarantees and limitations for quantum algorithms, numerical simulation/benchmarking of quantum algorithms and error-correcting codes, and applications of quantum algorithms to combinatorial optimization.
Sara Wadia-Fascetti
Vice Provost of PhD Network & Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor Wadia-Fascetti is the Vice Provost for the PhD Network and a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University. As Vice Provost, she provides university-level leadership for PhD education across Northeastern’s global university system. As the academic interface responsible for PhD programs, she works with the deans to deliver quality and distinctive student-centric PhD education across all disciplinary and interdisciplinary PhD programs. Professor Wadia-Fascetti’s research is at the intersection of nondestructive sensing technologies and diagnostics of civil infrastructure structural systems.
Mingzhong Wu
Professor of Physics & Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Wu’s recent research subjects include topological quantum materials, magnetic thin films, spin transport, spin torque, spin waves, and ferromagnetic resonance. He currently serves as the Chair of the Technical Committee of the IEEE Magnetics Society Technical, a Senior Editor for Journal of Alloys and Compounds, and an Editor for Physics Letters A. He was named Professor Laureate by the College of Natural Sciences at Colorado State University for 2019, 2020, and 2021. He was elected IEEE Fellow and APS Fellow in 2021.
Qimin Yan
Associate Professor of Physics
Professor Yan is an Associate Professor of Physics at Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Materials from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012. From 2013 to 2016, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the University of California, Berkeley. From 2016 to 2022, he worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Temple University. In 2022, he joined the Department of Physics at Northeastern University as an Associate Professor. His current research interests include physical principle enhanced machine learning, data-driven discovery of solid-state quantum materials, quantum defects for quantum computing and information technologies, and functional semiconductors for energy conversion. He received the DOE Early Career Award in 2019 and the NSF CAREER Award in 2022.
Yoseob Yoon
Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Physics
Professor Yoon is an experimental condensed matter and quantum physicist specializing in the ultrafast coherent control and spectroscopy of low-dimensional quantum materials. His research focuses on inducing strong electronic and excitonic correlations through engineered van der Waals heterostructures (e.g., tunable moiré superlattices or interlayer coupling), strong external THz fields, and optical/THz cavities. He aims to elucidate how light-matter and matter-matter interactions give rise to emergent optoelectronic and quantum-mechanical properties, striving to achieve quantum control of material properties via enhanced interactions. To accomplish this, he employs a variety of spectroscopic techniques spanning visible to THz frequencies to monitor ultrafast dynamics, interactions, and transport of quasiparticles—such as moiré excitons, phonons, magnons, polarons, and polaritons—in quantum materials. His ultimate goal is to pave the way for the development of fast and efficient optoelectronic and quantum photonic devices.
Yizhi You
Assistant Professor of Physics
Professor You’s research focuses on a variety of problems in the field of quantum many-body theory. Her primary focus is the study of collective phenomena arising due to quantum mechanical effects in systems of correlated electrons. Areas of research include the study of fracton phases of matter, quantum field theory, and entanglement dynamics. Recently, Professor You has been delving into the decoherence effect and local quantum channels in many-body physics. The goal of this research is to explore the nature of non-equilibrium phases and phase transitions in open quantum systems instigated by local decoherence channels.
Affiliate Faculty Members
Benyamin Davaji
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Davaji’s research interests include heat transfer at micro- and nanoscale, elastic wave propagation, semiconductor nanofabrication process physics, and using data-driven methods for electronic devices and nanofabrication process developments. He is exploring novel device architectures for sensing, computation, and in-sensor-computing using piezoelectric, ferroelectric, triboelectric, and acoustoelectric effects. Professor Davaji directs the Autonomous Integrated Microsystem (AIMS) laboratory with research cores focused on integrated microsystems, data-guided design and nanofabrication, ultrasound microsystems for sensing and computation, and MEMS calorimetry for microbiology and biosensor development.
Siddhartha Ghosh
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Ghosh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University. He received the B.S. degree in from Cornell University in 2007, the M.S.E. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and the Ph.D. degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 2015, all in electrical engineering. From 2015-2020 he was a member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. His research interests include piezoelectric MEMS, optomechanical resonators and acousto-electronic devices for applications in RF signal processing, microwave photonics and quantum information processing. He serves on the Technical Program Committees for the IEEE MEMS Conference and International Frequency Control Symposium as well as the CLEO Subcommittee on Micro- and Nano-Photonic Devices. He received the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2023 and the NSF CAREER Award in 2024.
Sergey Kravchenko
Professor of Physics
Professor Kravchenko is studying low temperature (millikelvin) properties of low-dimensional electron systems by means of transport, capacitance, thermopower, and magnetization measurements. His primary interest is to understand the nature of the metal-insulator transition in strongly interacting two-dimensional electron systems, discovered by him and his collaborators, and to determine its phase diagram. This discovery was subject of numerous editorial papers in Physics Today, Nature, Science, Science Daily, The Economist, and elsewhere, and was listed on the American Physical Society timeline “A Century of Mesoscopic Physics (1899-1999)” as one of 50 main discoveries of the last century, together with the discovery of the superconductivity, the quantum Hall effect, etc.
Robert Markiewicz
Professor of Physics
Professor Markiewicz is modeling the spectral responses of a variety of experimental probes, including angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), optical spectra, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS), and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STM) — the very probes that are providing continual new insights into the physics of the cuprates. He has developed an intermediate-coupling model of the cuprates, which provides a detailed explanation of all these spectroscopies over a wide doping and energy range. He has developed a general technique for exploring competing magnetic and charge-ordered phases in these materials, and has found a promising candidate for the phases seen in STM studies. Professor Markiewicz is also studying a variety of correlated metals and topological insulators.
Matteo Rinaldi
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Rinaldi’s research interests primarily include Micro/Nano Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS/NEMS) devices with particular emphasis on Aluminum Nitride (AlN) piezoelectric NEMS sensors for physical, chemical and biological detection, AlN Radio Frequency MEMS/NEMS devices, micro/nano fabrication techniques and integration of MEMS/NEMS devices with electronics. He has authored more than 20 publications in the aforementioned research areas and also holds 3 device patent applications in the field of micro/nano mechanical resonant devices.
Sunil Mittal
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Mittal is an experimental physicist interested in quantum photonics, topological and non-Hermitian physics, and quantum materials. His research leverages photonic systems to create novel topological and non-Hermitian phases of light, and explores their potential applications in innovative photonic devices. These include nonlinear optical frequency combs, quantum-enhanced sensors, and quantum light sources which are critical for advancing photonic quantum technologies. He is also interested in using integrated photonic systems to engineer quantum materials.
Jonathan Weitsman
Robert G. Stone Professor of Mathematics
Professor Weitsman works on the interface of differential geometry, symplectic geometry, and mathematical physics.
Xufeng Zhang
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Physics
Professor Zhang’ has diverse research interest in device physics and applications, with a main focus on experimental study of spin wave dynamics and magnonic devices hybridized with microwave/photonics/mechanics for coherent and quantum information processing.