Kishan Dholakia

Professor Kishan Dholakia (FRSE, OSA Fellow, SPIE Fellow) is a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. He has worked for a number of years as a postdoctoral research fellow, a Royal Scoiety of Edinburgh Research Fellow, and now as a permanent member of staff. His research interests cover pretty much everything related to optics.

Research Staff

yoshiaritaYoshihiko Arita

Yoshihiko Arita is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow who works on optical photoporation and cell transfection. He obtained his DPhil in physics at Oxford in 2008 then became a PDRA to further his doctoral research on broadband absorption spectroscopy using multi-mode lasers to detect spectral signatures of multiple species. Yoshi also has significant experience in the instrumentation of time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF-MS) from working at Kore Technology Ltd in Cambridge and Horiba Ltd in Kyoto for seven years before his PhD.

mingzhouchenMingzhou Chen

Mingzhou Chen is a  postdoctoral research fellow whose research interests include optical vortices, laser beam correction and complex optical wave fields. He obtained a master degree in 2002, from Tianjin University (China). After graduation and until early 2005 he had been working in industry. In 2009 he completed his PhD at University of Pretoria (South Africa) under supervision of Professor S. Roux. From December 2008 to September 2012, he has been working with Professor Chris Dainty as a postdoctoral researcher at the Applied Optics Group in National University of Ireland Galway (Ireland).

zhengyiyangZhengyi Yang

Zhengyi Yang obtained his MEng in engineering in East China University of Science and Technology in 2010. He then moved to University of Dundee for PhD degree in Electrical Engineering and Physics, where he was investigating beam shaping techniques for imaging and manipulation. In February 2014, Zhengyi joined the group as a research fellow working on light sheet microscopy and optical trapping.

ivangusachenkoIvan Gusachenko

Ivan Gusachenko joined the group in 2015 as a Research Fellow. His research work mainly focuses on wavefront shaping of light in complex and scattering media such as optical fibres, and its applications to microscopy and optical trapping. Ivan finished his BSc in Novosibirsk State University in Russia, and then pursued his MSc and PhD degree in Ecole Polytechnique, France, where he studied second harmonic generation microscopy in biological tissues. After his PhD, Ivan spent 3 years as a postdoc in Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, where his research was concentrated on optical nanofibres and metal nanoapertures applied to optical trapping.

jonathannylkJonathan Nylk

Jonathan Nylk graduated from the University of St Andrews with a Masters in Physics with Photonics in 2012. He started his PhD in the Optical Manipulation Group in June 2012 with the focus of using structured light to develop advanced optical microscopy techniques for use in the biomedical sciences. In 2016 he completed his PhD and continues his work in the group as a Research Fellow.

grahambruceGraham Bruce

Graham Bruce graduated from University of St Andrews in 2007 with an MPhys degree in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics. He remained in St Andrews to complete a PhD in the Cassettari group, working on ultracold atoms and the generation of novel optical trapping geometries using computer generated holography. His postdoctoral research was carried out at University of Strathclyde, constructing the world’s first quantum gas microscope for fermionic atoms, and back in St Andrews developing cold-atom rotation sensors.  He joined the Optical Manipulation group as a research fellow in August 2016, working on optical trapping and cooling in vacuum.

PhD Students

naomimcreynoldsNaomi McReynolds

Naomi McReynolds graduated from the University of St. Andrews with a Masters in Physics in 2011. She started her PhD in the Biophotonics group in September 2013 where her project will focus on developing detection applications for smartphones using fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy techniques.

francesgoffFrances Goff

Frances Goff is a PhD student in the Biophotonics group. Her main focus is on the protein ‘Willin’ discovered in the brain by Frank Gunn-Moore’s lab and which has been shown to have a role in both cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease. She will be using the SIM microscope to obtain high resolution images of the cellular cytoskeleton interacting with Willin. She has a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of St Andrews.

adriamontalbanAdrià Escobet Montalbán

Adrià Escobet Montalbán studied Engineering Physics at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya from 2011 to 2015. He carried out his undergraduate thesis at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO). He then moved to Imperial College London and obtained a MSc in Optics and Photonics in 2016. Adrià joined the group in October 2016 to pursue a PhD with a main focus on light sheet fluorescence microscopy.

yunlongwang_thumbnailYunlong Wang

Yunlong Wang is a Joint PhD student in Xian Jiaotong University, PR China and he will study in the Optical Manipulation Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy for the next year. His main focus is on super-resolution methods in optical microscopy. His research will focus on Raman super-resolution microscopy based on the principle of pixel-reassignment.

roopamguptaRoopam Gupta

Roopam Gupta graduated from Indian institute of Science education and research Kolkata with an Integrated BS-MS degree in Physical Sciences. He joined the Optical Manipulation Group in October 2016. His research focuses on label-free micro-spectroscopic characterisation of cells of the immune system.

 

Past Members and Visitors

Collaborators