[Laboratory Introduction and Brief Biography]
Rho's research group is not only developing a new concept of novel optical nanomaterials having extraordinary and unprecedented eletromagnetic properties based on fundamental physics and experimental studies of deep sub-wavelength light-matter interaction, but also realizing engineering device applications including, but not limited to, super-resolution imaging, negative index materials, tunable/active/reconfigurable metasurfaces, highly efficient light controlling devices, ultra-sensitive biomedical sensors, nanoscale lasers, next-generation displays, VR/AR/XR devices, radiative cooling devices, unconventional nanofabrications, scalable nanomanufacturing methods and deep-learning-based design methodologies.
Prof. Rho is currently a Yeon-San (延山) Endowed Chair Professor and Mu-Eun-Jae (无垠斋) Endowed Chair Professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Korea, with a joint appointment in the Department of Chemical Engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley (2013), M.S. at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2008) and B.S. at Seoul National University, Korea (2007) all in Mechanical Engineering. He also has a degree majoring in English, French, and Chinese at Myungduk Foreign Language High School, Korea. Prior to joining POSTECH, he conducted postdoctoral research in the Materials Sciences Division & Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and also worked as a principal investigator (Ugo Fano Fellow - one of the highest honored named fellowships supported by the US Department of Energy) in the Nanoscience and Technology Division & the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory.
Prof. Rho has authored and co-authored more than 350 high-impact journal papers including Science, Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Photonics and Chemical Reviews. He is also the recipient of several notable honors and awards such as MRS graduate student award (2011), SPIE scholarships in optics and photonics (2011,2012), OSA CLEO Incubic/Milton Chang Award (2013), Samsung Lee Kun-Hee fellowship (2008-2013), US Department of Energy Argonne Named fellowship (2014), Edmund Optics Award (2015), OSK Young Investigator Award (2016), SPIE Rising Researcher Award (2017), Korean Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning Minister's Commendation (2017), Proud POSTECHIAN Award-Research (2018), Korean Ministry of Science and ICT Minister's Commendation (2019), OSA IMCO Young Scientist Award (2019), POSTECH Mu-Eun-Jae Endowed Chair Professorship (2019-2031), Korean Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2019), OSK Rising Stars 30 (2020), Springer-Nature MINE Young Scientist Award (2020), Elsevier MEE/MNE Young Investigator Award and Lectureship (2020), MDPI Micromachines Young Investigator Award (2020), Member of the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (2020), Haerim (海林) Photonics Award (2021), POSTECH Young Distinguished Professorship (2021), Proud POSTECHIAN Award-Education (2021), Associate Member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea (2022), NAEK Young Engineers Award (2022), Hong Jin-Ki Creator Award (2022), Fulbright Visiting Scholar Fellowship (2022), Simpson Fellowship (2022), Eshbach Fellowship (2023), Elsevier World Top 2% Scientists (2023, 2024), Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2023, 2024), ACS Nano Lectureship (2024), National Award for Scientists and Engineers of the Month (2024), Yeon-San Endowed Chair Professorship (2024-2027). He is also the editor of Light: Science and Applications (Springer-Nature), Microsystems and Nanoengineering (Springer-Nature), npj Nanophotonics (Springer-Nature), Nanophotonics (De Gruyter), Micro and Nano Engineering (Elsevier), Photonix (Springer), Photonics Insights (SPIE), Advanced Photonics Nexus (SPIE). Frontiers of Optoelectronics (Springer), Frontiers in Nanotechnology (Frontiers), Journal of Micro- and Nano-Manufacturing (ASME), Current Optics and Photonics (Optica), Scientific Reports (Springer-Nature) and iScience (Cell Press).