We asked our graduates to write about their time in our group. Here are their stories.
2023
- Meiting Song PhD
- Marissa Granados Báez PhD
- Juniyali Nauriyal PhD
- Nicholas Achuthan B.S.
- Evelyn Ferwalt B.S.
- Yi Zhang PhD
Meiting Song PhD
November 2, 2022
My name is Meiting Song. I am from Hebei, China and I got my Bachelor’s degree in Optoelectronics at Tianjin University in 2016. Then I came to the University of Rochester to continue my graduate studies at the Institute of Optics as part of the Cardenas Lab group. I graduated from the PhD program in August 2022 and continued in the Cardenas Lab as a postdoc. MORE
Marissa Granados Báez PhD
12/07/2022
My name is Marissa Granados Baez. I was born in Cordoba and grew up in Orizaba, both in the state of Veracruz in Mexico. I recently graduated from the Ph.D. Optics program at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. The focus of my Ph.D. was on integrated photonics. My main project focused on building an on-chip laser based on 2D materials. MORE
Juniyali Nauriyal PhD
2017-2023
I am Juniyali Nauriyal from India, I’m finished a PhD in Electrical Engineering with a focus on integrated photonics and how to connect optical fibers to photonic chips in 2023. I completed my Bachelors in Engineering from Mumbai University in 2016 and then come to the United States to further do a masters. I completed my Masters in Optics from the University of Rochester in 2018 and continued my journey of graduate school as a PhD student. MORE
Nicholas Achuthan B.S.
Joining Cardenas lab as an undergraduate was one of my most impactful college experiences. I came to the group in the first semester of my sophomore year, with only a small handful of optics classes under my belt. I barely knew what integrated photonics was, but Professor Cardenas saw enough promise in me to bring me onto the team. MORE
Evelyn Ferwalt B.S.
Three years into my Electrical & Computer Engineering bachelor’s, I knew I needed to start specializing. I didn’t have much of a direction, but an ECE background meant I had countless directions to pursue. I was always curious about UR’s optics program, and even though I didn’t think research was for me, I started getting excited about the field of electro-optics, and started looking for opportunities. MORE
Yi Zhang PhD
August 24, 2023
It is time to say goodbye to Rochester. Though it has been almost a month since my defense passed, and my friends and I have partied, hugged, and said best wishes to our futures, a feeling of incredibility still ripples through my mind when I start typing down these words. I have stayed in this little city (compared to my hometown) for six years, have met, worked with, and hung around with many amazing people, have earned a degree, and now I am about to shift to the next stage in my life. Time flies, but when I look back into it, the clips of moments in the past two thousand days and nights just emerge and become explicit, reminding me of this memorable period of time in my life. MORE
