People

Jennifer Dionne, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering

Stanford University

Jennifer Dionne is an assistant professor in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. In 2009, she received her Ph. D. in Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology, working with Professor Harry Atwater. In 2010, Dionne served as a postdoctoral research fellow in Chemistry, working with Professor Paul Alivisatos at the University of CA, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

 

Professor Dionne's research develops new optical materials for applications ranging from high-efficiency solar energy conversion to bioimaging and manipulation. This research has led to demonstration of negative refraction at visible wavelengths, development of a subwavelength silicon electro-optic modulator, development of quantum plasmonic materials, design of new optical tweezers for nano-specimen trapping, and demonstration of a metamaterial fluid.

 

Recently, Prof. Dionne was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2014), the inaugural Kavli Nanoscience Early Career Lectureship from MRS (2013), and was also named one of Technology Review's TR35 - 35 international innovators under 35 tackling important problems in transformative ways (2011). She was also awarded the Outstanding Young Alum award from Washington University in St. Louis (2012), the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (2012), an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Grant (2010), the Clauser Prize for best Caltech thesis (2009), and the Materials Research Society Gold Award for outstanding graduate student (2008). In addition, Dionne has received several best paper awards at international conferences and holds patents on upconverting materials, optical tweezers, nano-optical tomography, plasmonic modulators, and plasmonic display technologies. Dionne's work been featured in Nature, Science, and other major scientific journals, as well as on PBS and in Michio Kaku’s book “Physics of the Impossible.”