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.

Postdoctoral Scholars

Saman Moniri

Email: moniri@ucla.edu
Office: 2-240A Knudsen

Saman joined the Miao group in July 2020 as a Postdoctoral Scholar. His interests lie in atomic electron tomography of 2D and catalytic materials. He received his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in May 2020. During his PhD Saman studied the non-classical crystallization pathways in eutectic-forming systems, including those with spiral morphology, through combining experimental techniques – precise synthesis along with multiscale, three-dimensional, and time-resolved measurements – and computational tools – computer vision and machine learning. As part of these efforts, he has gained experience spanning in situ synchrotron X-ray characterization, electron microscopy, spectroscopy, and data science. Saman obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2014 in chemical engineering with minors in mathematics and in physics. While at UIUC, he researched the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide.

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.

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.

Elisa Negrini

Email: enegrini@ipam.ucla.edu

Elisa Negrini joined IPAM as a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow in August 2022. During her time at IPAM she has been collaborating with John Miao's group to develop a mathematical model and a deep learning framework for In Situ Coherent Diffractive Imaging. Elisa received her Bachelors and Master of Science in Mathematics from University of Bologna and her Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences from Worcester Polytechnic Institute under the supervision of Luca Capogna and Giovanna Citti. Elisa’s research interests are very broad and span from Deep Learning and applications to Analysis and Differential Equations to Optimal Transport and Analysis on Metric Spaces. Her most recent work focuses on developing mathematically-principled deep learning algorithms for forward and inverse problems that are completely data-driven, robust to noise and that can be used to solve a variety of real world problems.

Yuxuan Liao

Email: arxuan@g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Office: Knudsen 3-132

Yuxuan joined the Coherent Imaging Group as a STROBE Postdoctoral researcher in September 20022. 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.

Graduate Students

Dillan Chang

Email: djchang@physics.ucla.edu

Dillan received his B.S. in Engineering Physics and Computer Science from Cornell University, and joined the Miao group in 2018 as a graduate student. His research interest lies in applying computational methods with atomic electron tomography (AET) and searching for new domains of materials that can be probed with improved methodology. Dillan is an avid fan of podcasts, competitive video games, and national parks.

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.

Undergraduate Students

Alexander Stangel

Email: astangel845@g.ucla.edu

Alex is currently pursuing his B.S. in Physics from UCLA. He joined the Miao group in September 2021 and is interested in the imaging of materials using ptychography. He plans to pursue a PhD in Condensed Matter physics after graduating. Alex is also an avid skier and enjoys playing soccer.