Team

In the nano-design group, we strive to create an environment where everyone feels safe and welcome. I am proud to be a member of the SEAS Committee for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, and everyone in our team is dedicated to contributing to a diverse and inclusive environment. If you are interested in joining our team - for example, as a student (K-12, undergraduate, graduate), post-doc, industry partner, as a fellow collaborator committed to diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) - please contact me and let me know; our group is looking to grow!

Principal Investigator: Gage Hills

I grew up in the Bay Area in northern California, playing soccer and swimming in the cold waters of the Pacific Ocean in Muir Beach, CA. It was hard to leave the west coast, but I now feel at home here in Boston.

I finished my PhD at Stanford in 2018 and then joined MIT as a post-doc (working with Professors Subhasish Mitra, H.-S. Philip Wong, and Max Shulaker). During my PhD, I also worked at imec (the Inter-university Micro-Electronics Center in Leuven, Belgium), Intel Labs (Hillsboro, OR), Microsoft (Mountain View, CA), and Canesta (a start-up company developing time-of-flight video cameras). I'm a strong believer in applying theory to practice, and encourage students to gain experience in industry to enhance their research.

Check out our Research page for details about which specific research areas I’m excited about pursuing, which of course, overlap with our group’s PhD students’ research. They’re the ones that do all the work (not me).

PhD Students

PhD students are the heart of our team, leading multiple cutting-edge research projects, managing collaborations, mentoring undergraduates, and contributing to teaching. We currently have 7 PhD students centered in Electrical Engineering, and including Applied Physics and Computer Science.

4th year PhD students (G4)

Mariam Elgamal - Mariam is a fourth year PhD candidate working on designing and optimizing environmentally sustainable computing systems. Prior to joining Harvard, she double majored in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at New York University Abu Dhabi. Outside of research, Mariam enjoys running and a good cup of coffee. Tentative thesis title: “Robust Optimization of Carbon-Efficient Computing Systems”.

Georgios Kyriazidis - Georgios received his Integrated Masters in Electrical Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2020 with a specialization in analog integrated circuits. During his undergraduate studies, he explored the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Europe with his startup Embneusys which targets the digitalization of construction/mining sites. His current research interests include 3D integrated mixed-signal systems (from extremely resource-constrained to high-performance ones), the creation of frameworks to optimize VLSI development process and microfabrication of electronic and photonic systems. Tentative thesis title: “Cross-Domain Co-Optimization of Electronic-Photonic Computing Systems”.

3rd year PhD students (G3)

John Davis - Hi, I'm John!! I graduated from Tufts in 2022 with a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Physics. I love to mix Engineering and Physics because it lets me work anywhere in the technology stack from huge machinery all the way down to the atomic scale. That's why I joined the Harvard Nano-Design group. We do a little bit of everything! My focus is enabling VLSI photonics systems. I explore promising new laser technologies developed by physicists and find killer applications for them. Then, I work with multidisciplinary teams of engineers and physicists to build the tools and techniques to make systems with these new devices. That way, engineers are ready to deploy them in the real world. The 3 big application areas we target are computing, communications, and biomedical devices. Tentative thesis title: "Enabling Very-Large-Scale Integrated (VLSI) Photonic Digital Integrated Circuits".

 Jalil Morris - Jalil’s PhD work focuses on electro-mechanical co-design, for tomorrow’s most severely-constrained systems in terms of Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP). A flagship application of electro-mechanical co-design is embodied by the Harvard RoboBee, a project that has been pioneered by our collaborator Rob Wood and his team. RoboBee is especially demanding on electronics since it requires “on-bee” sensing, computation, memory, power, and high-voltage actuation all within an extremely SWaP-constrained form factor. Before Harvard, Jalil graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Jalil’s interests generally span computer software and its interactions with hardware and embedded systems. He is also looking into effective modeling of datacenter-scale distributed computing systems for large language model (LLM) training and inference. Tentative thesis title: "Size-, Weight-, and Power (SWaP)-Constrained Systems Enabled by Emerging Technologies".

David Kong - David is a PhD student in Electrical Engineering at Harvard. He received the MEng degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh in 2022 and studied at Caltech from 2019-2020. David’s research interests include energy-efficient software-hardware co-design with a particular focus on leveraging emerging technologies such as indium-gallium-zinc-oxide transistors for monolithic 3D embedded memory design, biomedical devices and in-sensor computing. Tentative thesis title: “Quantifying Trade-Offs in Power, Performance, Area, and Total Carbon Footprint of Three-Dimensional Integrated Computing Systems”.

2nd year PhD students (G2)

Danielle Grey-Stewart - Danielle's research focuses on both: predictive carbon footprint modeling of future computing systems, and fabrication of densely-integrated electronic-photonic circuits (in Harvard CNS) . before Harvard, Danielle was a Master's student at Oxford University studying Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. She completed an MSc in History of Science, Medicine and Technology (also from Oxford, awarded with Merit honors) and she received her B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT in February 2021. She is a Rhodes Scholar and is passionate the equitable advancement of technology through ethics-grounded engineering and responsive tech governance. Tentative thesis title: “VLSI fabrication and carbon footprint modeling of monolithic three-dimensional electronic-photonic integrated circuits”.

1st year PhD students (G1)

Moboluwagbe "Bolu" Adesanmi - Bolu’s research at Harvard so far has focused on the development of active optical metamaterials, i.e., thin-film structures with sub-wavelength features whose optical transfer function can be modified electronically, for applications in energy-efficient computation and communication of large-scale distributed computing systems. Before Harvard, she graduated from Villanova University with a Bachelor of Science in Physics. She is also interested in developing CO₂-efficient memory systems using ferroelectric materials integrated into field-effect transistor gate stacks.

For PhD Applicants, Applying to Start in Fall 2025

We are looking for new PhD students to start in fall 2025. If you are interested in joining our group, please apply to Harvard SEAS by December 15, 2024, and please list my name (Gage Hills) as one of the three faculty you would be interested in working with. That will make it very easy for me and my collaborators to find your application, and I can take a close look. Our group welcomes students from all disciplines and backgrounds, and are particularly interested in students with interest and expertise to contribute to the following areas starting in fall 2025, which align with our research thrusts:
 

• “Hardcore” VLSI design at the intersection of EE and CS, for example, combining expertise with industry-standard Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools (Cadence, Synopsys, Siemens, …), expertise with computer architecture-level design and optimization of large-scale heterogeneous distributed computing systems, and expertise in scripting and automation. Our expertise is in this area is well-covered by Georgios Kyriazidis (4th year), David Kong (3rd year), and Jalil Morris (3rd year), and so we are looking for the next generation of students to continue their legacy.
• Sustainable computing, in a broad sense. Making progress in sustainable computing requires a massively coordinated effort. We welcome students with backgrounds in a broad range of areas, including but not limited to: computer science (sustainable datacenters), semiconductor fabrication (embodied carbon footprint), chemistry (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances or PFAS), and others. Our expertise in this area is led by Mariam Elgamal (4th year), together with Danielle-Grey Stewart (2nd year) and David Kong (3rd year). We are looking for complementary expertise to contribute to this extremely broad and exciting research area.
• VLSI design and fabrication of electronic-photonic devices and circuits, e.g., at the intersection of EE and Applied Physics, especially for applications in energy-efficient communication in datacenter-scale distributed computing systems. We are especially interested in students with expertise in both photonic devices (e.g., understanding of low-level non-linear optical processes and optical simulation using tools such as Ansys Lumerical) and electronic devices (e.g., understanding the subtle interactions between electronic circuits and photonic circuits). Our contributions in this area are led by John Davis (3rd year), Georgios Kyriazidis (4th year), and Bolu Adesanmi (1st year). We are looking for new students to work with them, as we are continuing to gain momentum and financial support in the wide range of potential electro-optic solutions to computing’s communication challenge.

We strive to continue building a diverse research group, spanning a wide range of technical expertise and personal backgrounds. However you identify, e.g., as being part of an underrepresented group, or identify as being from a disadvantage background, please consider applying to join our research group!

Please note: we get many applications this time of year from highly qualified perspective students around the world. It is very challenging to respond to all emails! That doesn’t mean that we don’t read them. Even if I don’t respond to your email, I will personally read your PhD application if you list my name (Gage Hills) as one of the faculty you are interested in working with, no matter which of the seven SEAS areas you apply to (Electrical Engineering; Computer Science; Applied Physics; Environmental Science & Engineering; Materials Science & Mechanical Engineering; Bioengineering; Applied Mathematics).

As listed in our home page, we collaborate with many professors across SEAS, and encourage you to look into our collaborators’ research as well, especially to find new research areas at the intersection of multiple disciplines. I will always remember what my undergraduate research adviser (Peter Kindlmann) told me: “the time for individual contribution is over”. Our close collaborators at Harvard include (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable computing systems
  • David Brooks
  • Gu-Yeon Wei
  • Vijay Janapa Reddi
  • Minlan Yu
  • Elsie Sunderland
  • Le Xie
• Electronic-photonic integrated circuits
  • Kiyoul Yang
  • Marko Lončar
  • Federico Capasso
  • Julia Mundy
• Electro-mechanical co-design
  • Robert Wood
• Bio-electronic interface circuits and systems
  • Shriya Srinivasan
  • Donhee Ham

SEAS is a tight-knit community, and we are generally interested in collaborating with all groups across SEAS. Even if another collaborator is not listed here, please do not let that discourage you from proposing innovative interdisciplinary research ideas.

Apply to grad school at Harvard SEAS

For Everyone Interested in Joining our Group

Since our research spans multiple disciplines, no incoming student is expected to have expertise in every area that we research (myself included). The strength of nano-design is that it is an excellent "technical hub" for multiple disciplines to come together, and so there are not any specific technical pre-requisites for joining the nano-design group. More importantly, we are looking for motivated students who are passionate about their work, and who are willing to work across conventional boundaries to develop interdisciplinary solutions. As a starting point, we may be looking for students interested in nanofabrication, material science, applied physics, nano-device modeling, analog/digital/mixed-signal circuit design, VLSI using emerging nanotechnologies, opto-electronics, robotics, computer architectures, and areas in computer science (e.g., programming languages, compilers). However, if you have expertise in another area that you believe can thrive in the nano-design group, I'm happy to talk to you about it, since we are always looking for new directions to extend our current research. We also work closely with the research groups of David Brooks, Vijay Janapa Reddi, and Gu-Yeon Wei, and I encourage you to check out their research as well for potential connections.

If you are interested in joining the nano-design group, the best way to let me know is to email me. Some things that can be helpful to include in your email are:

• A little bit about yourself, and why you are interested in the nano-design group.
• 1-page resume (including any research experience you may have, e.g., in any areas mentioned in our research summary).
• Any experience with programming languages, simulation environments, or computer-aided design (CAD) tools (while our research doesn't necessarily focus on the development of CAD tools, they can be extremely effective in increasing research productivity). Example CAD tools include: tools from Cadence (Spectre, Virtuoso, Liberate, Allegro, Genus, Innovus, Tempus, Voltus), Synopsys (Sentaurus, SPICE, Silicon Smart, Design Compiler, Integrated Circuit Compiler, Primetime, VCS), Mentor Graphics Calibre, Xilinx Vivado, Altera Quartus, COMSOL Multiphysics, Lumerical (Finite Difference Time Domain). I'm always interested to learn about new tools to make design more productive, so if there are other tools that you have experience with and recommend, I'm happy to hear your suggestions.
• If you have any links to media or code summarizing any of your existing projects (e.g., your GitHub repository, short presentations, slides, posters, or project videos), those can be great to include as well.

Don't worry if your experience so-far does not seem to overlap heavily with our current research; if you're interested in joining, then we can try to find a way to connect.