UCLA Welcomes New Materials Science and Engineering Faculty

Laura Kim, who is completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will join the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering’s Materials Science and Engineering Department in November as an assistant professor.

Her research focuses on furthering the understanding and manipulation of light as it interacts with matter at the quantum level. Kim has studied 2D quantum materials, ultrafast photonic quasiparticle interactions, nanophotonics, plasmonics, diamond spin microscopy and defect centers in diamonds. Applications from this line of research include new classes of nanophotonic devices and quantum technologies, as well as the design of quantum imaging and sensing systems to capture phenomena that have remained elusive with classical systems. 

Kim is currently an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow with the Quantum Photonics Group at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics. In addition to leading research projects, Kim has been an active mentor and advisor to graduate students. Prior to MIT, she was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech where she also received a Ph.D. in materials science and a B.S. in chemical engineering.

Among the many accolades she garnered, Kim was named an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation Graduate Fellow and she received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. In 2020, UC Berkeley named her a Rising Star in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Kim’s appointment is part of UCLA Samueli’s Mentor Professor Program, an initiative designed to hire faculty who are not only excellent in their fields but also have a demonstrated record of, or show exceptional promise for, mentorship of students from underrepresented and underserved populations.