Coherent Group Website

Prof. Jianwei (John) Miao
STROBE Assistant Project Scientist
Administrative Assistant
Postdoctoral Scholars
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Students
Alumni

Principal Investigator

Prof. Jianwei (John) Miao

Email: miao@physics.ucla.edu
Office: 3-108 Knudsen
Phone: (310) 206-2645

Dr. Miao is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA. He is also the Deputy Director of STROBE, an NSF Science and Technology Center on Real-Time Functional Imaging, which aims to tackle major scientific challenges by improving imaging technologies. Dr. Miao's research interests lie in the interplay of physics, materials science, nanoscience, and biology. He has developed groundbreaking physical methods for high-resolution 3D imaging of nanoscale materials and biological specimens. He pioneered coherent diffraction imaging (CDI), a lensless imaging (or computational microscopy) technique that is under rapid development worldwide. Recently, he pioneered atomic electron tomography (AET) for 3D structure determination of crystal defects and disordered systems at the single-atom level. Using advanced electron microscopies, X-ray free electron lasers, high harmonic generation, and synchrotron radiation, his group will continue to push the frontiers of high-resolution 3D X-ray and electron imaging and to pursue their applications in the physical and biological sciences. MORE

Administrative Assistant

Nickie Ng

Email: nickie@physics.ucla.edu
Office: Knudsen 4-140B
Phone: 310-825-3441

Administrative Assistant, Physics & Astronomy.

Project Scientist

Minh Pham

Email: minhrose@math.ucla.edu

Minh Pham has collaborated with Miao group since Fall 2017 when he was a Ph.D. student at UCLA Mathematics Department. He completed his Ph.D. in May 2020, and right after that he started his Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCLA as an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Mathematics Department. His research interests lie in inverse problems, image processing, algorithm development, optimization, and deep learning. In his collaboration with Miao group, he develops algorithms in solving CDI, electron and X-ray imaging, including Ptychography and Tomography.

Postdoctoral Scholars

Colum O'Leary

Email: coleary@physics.ucla.edu

Colum received his BSc in Physics from Trinity College Dublin in 2016. After that, he obtained his PhD degree in Materials from the University of Oxford in 2020. His PhD research was focused on the development and applications of STEM ptychography. During this project, Colum developed extensive skills for imaging light-element and beam-sensitive materials at atomic resolution, including STEM imaging theory, aberration-corrected (S)TEM experiments and ptychographic algorithm development. He joined the Miao group in October 2020 as a STROBE Postdoctoral Fellow and is working on combining CDI and AET experiments. Outside of research, Colum enjoys running, playing Gaelic football, and telling jokes.

NaYeon Kim

Email: nayeon418@gmail.com

Nayeon Kim joined Prof. John Miao's group in August 2021 as a STROBE Postdoctoral Scholar. In Miao's group, she is working with an interest in electron ptychography in 2D van der Waals heterostructures using advanced electron microscopies. She received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in 2013 and 2019. During her Ph.D., she studied the local structural transformation by interatomic interactions in layered materials using aberration-corrected TEM, particularly focusing on analyses on atomic resolution TEM/STEM imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy. For this, she developed skills in moire superstructure analysis and investigated how to correlate structural and chemical evolution.

Yuxuan Liao

Email: urxuan@physics.ucla.edu
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Yuxuan joined the Coherent Imaging Group as a STROBE Postdoctoral researcher in September 2022. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 2019. His Ph.D. research was focused on phonon transport in nanostructured crystal/amorphous materials and inelastic x-ray/neutron scattering. In this project, he involves applying 3D atomic electron tomography (AET) to determine the 3D atomic coordinates of disordered solids and use these measured coordinates to probe and understand fundamental electron/phonon transport mechanisms at the single-atom level, with a combination of Density Functional Theory. Besides research, Yuxuan likes playing running, basketball and reading.

Haozhi Sha

Email: haozhi@physics.ucla.edu
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Haozhi joined the Coherent Imaging Group as a STROBE Postdoctoral researcher in July 2023, after receiving his Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University. His Ph.D. research was focused on development and application of electron ptychography, especially multislice ptychography. During this project, he developed skills of (S)TEM experiments, image and diffraction simulations, including the theory and coding. As a postdoctoral researcher in Miao's group, he involves applying electron ptychography and 3D atomic electron tomography (AET) to determine the atomic structures of 2D ferroelectric heterostructures. Besides research, Haozhi likes watching animations, playing table tennis and badminton.

Zhong Zhuang

Email: zhuan143@umn.edu
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Zhong Zhuang joined the Coherent Imaging Group in October 2023 as an AI for Science Postdoctoral Researcher. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Zhong's research centers on applying AI to ptychographic phase retrieval at low doses and atomic electron tomography for three-dimensional imaging of materials at the single-atom level, under the guidance of Prof. Jianwei "John" Miao. Additionally, he is deeply interested in advancing the foundations of ML/AI models informed by these challenging scientific problems.

Graduate Students

Ada Morral

Email: adajm1@g.ucla.edu
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Ada received her B.S. in Physics from Virginia Tech in 2020. After graduating, she came to UCLA as a graduate student and joined the Coherent Imaging group. She is currently interested in the 3D reconstruction of materials and is working on projects involving atomic electron tomography (AET), using both simulated and collected data.

Aviram Bhalla-Levine

Email: abhallalevine@g.ucla.edu
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Aviram received his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2021 and joined the Coherent Imaging Group in 2022 as a graduate student. His research interest is in characterizing three dimensional atomic displacements at nanoscale inhomogeneities with electron tomography. His past work includes scanning probe microscopy measurements of ferroelectric hysteresis and structural characterization of materials with x-ray diffraction techniques. Besides research, Aviram enjoys exploring museums, reading fiction, and playing board games.

Hanfeng Zhong

Email: hanfengz0811@g.ucla.edu
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Hanfeng received his B.S. in Electronic Science & Engineering from Southeast University China in 2022 and furthered his education at UCLA after graduating. He joined the Miao group to focus on Coherent Diffraction Imaging (CDI) as a graduate student and is interested in improving the algorithm’s efficiency. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. after accomplishing his M.S. program.

Daniel Jacobs

Email: danieldanieldanielj@gmail.com

Daniel received his B.S. in biophysics from UCLA. He is interested in imaging biological samples at atomic resolution and applying coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) to in situ structures. His past work includes phase retrieval for diffraction patterns obtained with an optical laser as well as molecular dynamics analysis on membrane proteins. In his free time, Daniel enjoys running in the Santa Monica mountains, scuba diving, and camping.

Yuchen Cao

Email: yuchencao0709@g.ucla.edu

Yuchen received her B.E. in Opto-Electronics Information Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University China in 2022 and came to UCLA for ECE MS program. She joined the Miao group in 2023 to focus on in situ CDI as a graduate student, and plans to pursue a Ph.D. after accomplishing her M.S. program.

Undergraduate Students

John Gallagher

Email: jcgallagher517@g.ucla.edu

John Gallagher is a fourth year undergraduate at UCLA working towards a B.S. in physics. He joined the Coherent Imaging Group in April of 2023 after receiving the STROBE SURS fellowship. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics, and is principally interested in 2D quantum materials and electron ptychography. Outside research, he enjoys sailing and making music.

Alumni

Moniri, Saman

Senior Engineer
Tesla, Inc.

Negrini, Elisa

Assistant Adjunct Professor
Department of Mathematics
UCLA

Bartels, Matthias

Freelancer
Self-employed
Germany

Bostani, Maryam

Associate Clinical Professor
David Geffen School of Medicine
UCLA

Chang, Dillan

Actuarial Analyst
Allstate

Chen, Chien-Chun

Associate Professor
Department of Engineering and System Science
National Tsing Hua University
Taiwan

Fahimian, Benjamin P.

Radiation Oncology Physicist
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Fung, Russell

Senior Scientist
Department of Physics
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Gallagher-Jones, Marcus

Senior Electron Microscopy Structural Biologist
The Rosalind Franklin Institute
U.K.

Huang, Zhifeng

Staff Scientist
Carl ZEISS X-ray Microscopy Inc.

Jiang, Huaidong

Professor
School of Physical Science and Technology
ShanghaiTech University
China

Kim, Dennis

Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Florida

Lee,Edwin

Quantitative Analyst
Quantifi, Inc.

Lo, Yuan Hung (Mike)

Machine Learning Platform Architect
Zoom Video Communications, Inc.

Lu, Rong

Professor and Executive Dean
Department of Physics
Beijing University of Technology
China