Alumni

PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Grainger Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (2024) 

Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan Competition - 3rd place (2024)

After departure: Co-founder and CEO at Dirac Labs

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PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Schmidt Science Fellow (2025) 

ECE Harold Peterson Outstanding Dissertation (2025)

OSA Best Student Paper Award Winner (2025)

After departure: Postdoc at Stanford University

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PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Internship: X, the moonshot factory (formerly Google X) (2023)

After departure: Google

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PhD and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Best student paper, 1st prize, Novel Optical Materials and Applications (2024) 

Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (2019)

After departure: Principal Scientist at Physical Sciences Inc.

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Postdoctoral Scholar in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Finalist, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Innovation Award (2021)

People's Choice Award (best talk), UW-Madison Postdoctoral Research Symposium (2018)

After departure: Assistant Professor at University of North Texas

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Xiao Group Website

PhD and MS in Materials Science and Engineering

Finalist, James Harper Award (American Vacuum Society Thin-Film Division) (2021)

Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Scholarship (AVS National Graduate Student Award) (2021)

Finalist, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Innovation Award (2021)

After departure: Postdoc at Stanford University

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PhD in Physics, MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advanced Materials Industrial Consortium Seed Project (2016)

After departure: Research Scientist at Meta Reality Labs

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PhD and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Harold Peterson Outstanding Dissertation Award, ECE Department (2022)

Chancellor's Opportunity Fellowship (2018, 2019)

Frank Rogers Bacon Fellowship (2015)

After departure: Honeywell Aerospace

Google Scholar

PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering

DoD SMART Scholarship, sponsored by AFRL (2018)

Directed Energy Professional Society Sam Blankenship Award (2018)

Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (2016)

After departure: Air Force Research Laboratory

PhD and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Best student paper, 1st prize, Novel Optical Materials and Applications (2019) 

After departure: Lead optical scientist at Quantum-Si

Currently: Staff engineer at Avicena Tech

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MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

After departure: PhD student at Boston University

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MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow

After departure: Medical student (fully funded) at UCLA

Google Scholar

MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

International Colour Vision Society Summer School (2020)

Graduate Engineering Research Scholar (2018)

Advanced Opportunity Fellowship (2018)

After departure: PhD student in Prof. Yesilkoy's group at UW-Madison

Currently: Apple

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MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sandia's Critical Skills Master's Program Fellow

After departure: Electrical engineer at Sandia National Lab

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Co-op student [2017], visiting from the University of Waterloo

After departure: returned to Waterloo, then Ph.D. student at Harvard

Visiting researcher, doing his MS research while @ ETH Zurich [2017]

Received for his MS thesis: Foundation Enovos Prix d’Excellence (2018)

After departure: Ph.D. student at the Autonomous University of Madrid, with La Caixa INPhINIT doctoral fellowship (2018)

Intern [Summer 2019 - Spring 2020], visiting from Shanghai Jiao Tong University

After departure: returned to SJTU to finish his BS, then Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge

Undergraduate student [Summer 2025], UW-Madison

Undergraduate student [2024], UW-Madison

Undergraduate student [2024], UW-Madison

Visiting student [summer 2024], visiting from University of Akron

Undergraduate researcher [Fall 2016 - Spring 2017], UW-Madison ECE student

After departure: Research Intern at UW-Madison (Physics), then MS Student at UCLA

Intern [Summer 2016], visiting from UT-El Paso

• UW-Madison Graduate Engineering Scholars (GERS) Summer Fellow

After departure: returned to UT-El Paso to finish his BS, then Ph.D. student 

Undergraduate researcher [Fall 2016], UW-Madison ECE student

After departure: Electronic Design Engineer at Boeing

Undergraduate researcher [Fall 2017 - Spring 2020], UW-Madison CS student

After departure: Unity Developer at Holos, Inc

Remote intern [Summer 2020], visiting from Skidmore College

After departure:  returned to Skidmore to finish his BS

Undergraduate researcher [Spring 2020], UW-Madison AMEP student (class of 2021)

Undergraduate researcher [Fall 2017 - Spring 2020], UW-Madison CS student

After departure: Software Engineer at Google

Undergraduate researcher [Fall 2017], UW-Madison ECE student

After departure: Techincal solution engineer at Epic