SpeakerJunichiro Kono

Junichiro Kono received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in applied physics from the University of Tokyo in 1990 and 1992, respectively, and completed his Ph.D. in physics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1995. He was a postdoctoral research associate in condensed matter physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1995-1997 and the W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory Fellow in the Department of Physics at Stanford University in 1997-2000. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Rice University in 2000 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005 and to Professor in 2009. He is currently a Professor in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, and Materials Science & NanoEngineering at Rice University. Professor Kono was a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2002 and has been a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) since 2009 and a Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA) since 2015. Professor Kono is also the founder of the nationally recognized international program for science and engineering undergraduate students, NanoJapan, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, receiving the Heiskell Award for Innovation from the Institute of International Education in 2008. abstract