We have a group of super-talented young researchers on our team. They are passionate about their work and are dedicated to making a difference. Check out this page to learn more about them and their research.
Post Doctorate Scholars
Richard (Yu) Liu
Richard received his PhD in physics at Harvard University in 2023. His research focused on studying topological materials and strongly correlated topological materials with scanning tunneling microscope. Currently, Richard is working on developing machine learning-based automated workflows to accelerate the operation of scanning probe microscope and answer scientific questions that normal operations are difficult to answer. Hobbies: Richard likes building home projects based on Arduino and Raspberry Pi. He spent some free time rendering 3D images and animations in Blender. He also plays table tennis in his spare time.
Boris Slautin
Boris earned his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees at Ural Federal University in Russia, where he specialized in domain engineering using scanning probe microscopy. He later joined the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on developing and implementing AI-driven workflows for automated microscopy characterization. Currently, his research focuses on integrating experimental tools into multimodal frameworks and combining theoretical models with automated workflows to accelerate scientific discovery.
PhD Students
Aditya Raghavan
Aditya received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from India. He then went on to earn his master’s degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Florida. His research at Florida focused on compositionally complex cuprate YBCO. Currently, Aditya employs a scanning probe microscope to study combinatorial materials. He then applies physics-based machine learning algorithms to analyze the experimental data.
Kamyar Barakati
Kamyar holds a Master’s degree in Physics from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran, where he investigated charge transfer in mixed halide perovskite-based solar cells. Currently, he focuses on developing physics-based workflows for real-time image and data analysis in microscopy. Outside of the lab, Kamyar delights in playing soccer and following the sport as a fan.
Utkarsh Pratiush
Utkarsh Pratiush completed his Masters from the Indian Institute of Science. After that, he worked as an ML research engineer in industry for 2 years. His current work focuses on developing and deploying automated workflows on live instrument. In his free time, he likes to learn about geopolitics and world history.
Undergraduate Students
Erik Cruz
Erik C.’s research interests include machine learning and deep learning, with a focus on improving how images are analyzed. He is studying ways to apply computer vision and texture analysis to find key features in image datasets from different types of materials. His work aims to better understand how images can be used to highlight important details in scientific data. Erik plans to pursue a master’s degree in machine learning and intelligent systems to continue building on these directions. Outside of research, Erik spends time on a range of personal interests, including running 5k races, animation, drawing, video editing, and music.
