Principal Investigator
Elaheh Ahmadi
Ahmadi’s research is focused on design, fabrication and characterization of novel (ultra)wide bandgap materials and devices for high power and high frequency applications as well as quantum applications. Ahmadi joined UCSB as an Associate Professor in 2025. Prior to that, she was an Associate Professor at UCLA (2023-2025), and an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan (2018-2023). She has received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award in 2020 from both the Office of Naval Research and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. In 2021, she received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and DARPA Young Faculty Award. She also received the International Symposium on Compound Semiconductors Young Scientist Award. Very recently, she received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers. Ahmadi was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara prior to her faculty appointment at the University of Michigan. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in Iran. In 2015, she received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UC Santa Barbara.
Ph.D. Students
Ph.D.
Sorena Shadzinavaz
Sorena received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Iran and completed his M.S. in Electrical Engineering at UCLA in 2025. He has held research internships at École Polytechnique in Paris and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research focuses on semiconductor device fabrication and characterization.
Ph.D.
Erfan Shabani
Erfan received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2023. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his research focuses on fabrication and characterization of gallium oxide and gallium nitride transistors for high-power applications. He joined the group in Fall 2023.
Ph.D.
Sunil Choudhary
Sunil Choudhary earned his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 2021, and completed his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA in 2025. His research centers on the epitaxial growth and characterization of nitrides. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, playing tennis, and spending time at the beach.
Ph.D.
Navid Kafi
Navid received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics from the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany. He started his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCLA in 2024 before transferring to UCSB in 2025. His research is focused on the MBE growth and characterization of ferroelectric Nitride films.
Ph.D.
Harsh Rana
Received his BS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Ohio State University in 2022 and received his MS degree from UCLA in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB and his research is focused on Fabrication and Characterization of N-polar high electron mobility transistors. He joined the group in the Fall of 2022.
Ph.D.
Tahmid Sami Rahman
Received his BS from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and MS in ECE from the University of Maryland, College Park. He joined the group as a research and development engineer. His research is focused on molecular beam epitaxy growth and characterization of nitride films. He joined the group in Winter 2024
Ph.D.
Stefan Kosanovic
received his BS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Ohio State University in 2020 and his MS from the University of Michigan in 2022. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB and his research is focused on Fabrication and characterization of nitride-based transistors. He joined the group in the Fall of 2021.
Ph.D.
Aroni Ghosh
Aroni Ghosh received her BS in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2023. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB, and her research focuses on fabrication and characterization of high electron mobility transistors. She joined the group in Fall 2025.
Undergraduate Researchers
Alumni
Ph.D.
Oguz Odabasi
Oguz received his dual bachelor’s degree in both Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering and MS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Bilkent University in 2018 and 2021, respectively. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCLA and his research is focused on Fabrication and characterization of N-polar high electron mobility transistors. He joined the group in the Fall of 2021.
Alumni
Subhajit Mohanty
Subhajit completed his Ph.D. in Winter 2023 and now works at Texas Instruments.
Alumni
Kamruzzaman Khan
Kamruzzaman completed his Ph.D. in Fall 2022 and later became a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara.
Alumni
Ashley Jian
Ashley completed her Ph.D. in Summer 2022 and now works at Intel.
Alumni
Irfan Khan
Irfan received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2017 and 2020. His doctoral research focused on MBE growth and characterization of N-polar HEMT structures. He joined the group in Fall 2021.
Alumni
Zhuoqun Wen
Zhuoqun received his B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He pursued a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where his research focused on epitaxial growth and characterization of (Al,Ga)2O3 films and heterostructures. He joined the group in Winter 2021.
Alumni
Rijo Baby
Rijo received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. His doctoral research focused on normally-on and normally-off AlGaN/GaN HEMT devices for high-power applications. He later worked on scaled N-polar GaN devices for high-frequency applications and joined the group in Fall 2023.
Alumni
Mijung Kim
Mijung received her B.S. and M.S. from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea and her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2023. Her research focused on MBE growth and characterization of nitride films. She joined the group in October 2023.
- Ruby Wellen — Graduate research assistant, Fall 2020–Winter 2024 — rwellen@umich.edu
- Qianying Lu — Undergraduate student at UCLA, joined Fall 2023 — qianyinglu@g.ucla.edu
- Mahitosh Biswas — Postdoctoral researcher, August 2019–September 2020
- Wei-Ting (Sophia) Tseng — Graduate research assistant, January–December 2022
- Sandra Diez — Graduate research assistant, April 2018–August 2021
- Ethan Lu — Graduate research assistant, September 2019–March 2020
- Christiana Wornum — Undergraduate research assistant, Winter 2022
- Tomas Cartya — Undergraduate research assistant, Summer 2021–Summer 2022
- Daphne Agapiou — Undergraduate research assistant, Fall–Winter 2021
- Ian Concannon — Undergraduate research assistant, Fall–Winter 2021
- Christopher Clymore — Undergraduate research assistant, January–August 2019
- Jonathan Li — Undergraduate research assistant, September 2019–March 2020