Prize Winners
The Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes are awarded annually to PhD candidates selected for the best thesis, publication, or discovery in select fields.
2025
Wenzheng Heng receives the prize in Biotechnology or Related Fields. Nicolas Christianson receives the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources or Related Fields. Prachi Thureja receives the prize in Nanotechnology or Related Fields. Taeho Kim receives the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection
2024
Anand Muthusamy, advised by Henry Lester, Professor of Biology, receives the prize in biotechnology. Muthusamy's research combines the protein engineering of new biosensors and computer vision for pose estimation to quantify brain-body-behavior interactions. His PhD thesis is titled: "Neuropsychiatric Drug Biosensors in Organelles, Cells, Biofluids, & Behaving Animals." Andrei Ruskuc, advised by Andrei Faraon, the William L. Valentine Professor of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, receives the prize in nanotechnology. Ruskuc's research builds quantum networking technologies using single rare-earth ions coupled to nanophotonic cavities, as a means of interconnecting future quantum computers. His PhD thesis is titled: "Single Rare-Earth Ions in Solid-State Hosts: A Platform for Quantum Networks." Heather Lukas, a graduate student in Medical Engineering advised by Wei Gao, Assistant Professor of Medical Engineering; Investigator, Heritage Medical Research Institute; Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar, receives the prize in entrepreneurship for her business plan titled: "Persperity Health: A Caltech Medical Engineering Start-Up; Empowering women at every stage of the reproductive health journey through wearable hormone monitoring." Lukas' research focuses on engineering bioaffinity sensors towards continuous electrochemical sensing for noninvasive, wearable medical diagnostic platforms.
2023
Saransh Sharma, advised by Professor Azita Emami, has received the prize in Biotechnology or Related Fields for his research in developing ultra-low power and highly miniaturized medical electronics for in-vivo localization and tracking. Nathaniel Wei, advised by Professor John Dabiri, has received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources or Related Fields for his research that explores the ways in which unsteady flows in the atmosphere can be leveraged in wind-energy systems for enhanced performance, robustness, and operational longevity. Rebecca Gallivan, advised by Professor Julia Greer, has received the prize in Nanotechnology or Related Fields. Coupled with the development of novel materials processing, Gallivan's research focuses on uncovering fundamental insight into the relationship between length-scale and microstructural features on nanomechanical phenomena in order to lay the foundation for advanced engineering and complex design of materials in nanotechnologies.
2022
Ida Qin, advised by Professor Joel Burdick has received the prize in Biotechnology. Her research is in comprehensive temporal understanding and state estimation during robot-assisted surgery. Alan Gu, advised by Professor Michael R. Hoffmann has received the prize in Entrepreneurship. His research is in capturing CO2 at point emission sources to accelerate reaching a goal of carbon neutrality. Joeson Wong, advised by Professor Harry A. Atwater has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research is focused on the optoelectronic physics and engineering of atomically thin photovoltaics. Fengyu Zhou, advised by Professor Steven Low has received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources. His research involves the global optimality and relaxation exactness of the Optimal Power Flow problem in single-phase and multi-phase networks. Stacy Larochelle, advised by Professor Jean-Philippe Avouac and Professor Nadia Lapusta has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. Her research uses geodesy, data analysis and modeling to further the understanding of mechanical interactions between water and the solid Earth, from fluid-induced earthquakes to groundwater extraction.
2021
David Brown, advised by Professor Viviana Gradinaru and Professor Matt Thomson has received the prize in Entrepreneurship. His research is in molecular and computational strategies for both understanding variability in the human immune system, and characterizing the on- and off-target profile of gene therapy delivery at the resolution of individual cells. Hsiao-Yi Chen, advised by Professor Marco Bernardi has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research is in the development of ab initio methods to investigate exciton radiative emission and ultrafast dynamics. Tatyana Dobreva, advised by Professor Matt Thomson and Professor Viviana Gradinaru has received the prize in Entrepreneurship. Her research is in single-cell sequencing to interrogate the human immune system, characterize immune response to recombinant Adeno-Associated Viruses (AAVs), and engineer immune cells. Zachary Lee, advised by Professor Steven Low has received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources. His research involves developing a suite of tools and algorithms to enable smart electric vehicle charging at scale. Valere Lambert, advised by Professor Nadia Lapusta has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. His research is in developing and using physics-based numerical models that combine laboratory insight and theoretical developments to simulate sequences of earthquake ruptures and slow slip that match field observations, thus illuminating physical properties of faults and building towards predictive modeling.
2020
Manuel Bedrossian, advised by Professor Moretza Gharib has received the prize in Biotechnology. His research is in the development of novel optical imaging devices to investigate and characterize microbial populations in extreme environments around the world. Vinayak Narasimhan, advised by Professor Moretza Gharib and Hyuck Choo has received the prize in Biotechnology. His research is in the utilization of nanostructures inspired from nature in practical biomedical applications. Tyler Ross, advised by Professor Matt Thomson and Professor Paul Rothemund has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research is in guiding biomolecular filaments and motors to form structures and flow fields with patterned light. Adam Neumann, advised by Professor Michael Roukes has received the prize in Nanotechnology. His research involves incorporating nanoscale sensors into a mass spectrometer and using them to weigh individual molecules and perform rudimentary imaging of them. Joaquin Garcia Suarez, advised by Professor Dominiki Asimaki has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. His research is in fundamental research in Continuum Mechanics to better understand the behavior of civil structures during earthquakes.
2019
Anupama Lakshmanan, advised by Professor Mikhail Shapiro has received the prize in Biotechnology. Her research is in engineering of acoustic protein nanostructures for non-invasive molecular imaging using ultrasound. Seyedeh Mahsa Kamali, advised by Professor Andrei Faraon has received the prize in Nanotechnology. She focuses on changing paradigms in optical design through engineering materials at the nanoscale. Linqi (Daniel) Guo, advised by Professor Steven Low has received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Source. His research quantifies the impact of transmission network topology in electrical power system robustness against disturbances and failures. Chris Rollins, advised by Professor Jean-Phillippe Avouac has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. Chris studies the way that the Earth deforms gradually over periods of years and decades and uses this to shed light on how earthquakes work, where and how often they might occur in the future, and the hazard they may pose. Nicholas Flytzanis, advised by Professor Viviana Gradinaru has receive the prize in Entrepreneurship. His research is in engineering viruses to serve as next-generation gene therapy delivery vehicles for the treatment of human disease.
2018
Claire Bedbrook, advised by Professors Frances H. Arnold and Viviana Gradinaru received the prize in Biotechnology. Her research is in engineering proteins capable of controlling and reading out neural activity to advance neuroscience research. Nicholas Dou, advised by Professor Austin Minnich received the prize in Nanotechnology. Nicholas focuses on developing and characterizing novel nano-architected materials that are exceptionally lightweight, mechanically resilient, and thermally insulating. Xiaoqi Ren, advised by Professor Adam Wierman received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources. Xiaoqi's research is focused on optimization of today's large-scale data centers, including online scheduling, energy usage and sustainability, and new market mechanisms for electricity markets and data clouds. Daniel C. Bowden, advised by Professors Joann M. Stock and Victor Tsai has received the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection. Daniel has worked on a range of projects relating to the propagation of seismic waves in the Earth's crust. Colin Cook, advised by Professor Yu-Chong Tai has receive the prize in Entrepreneurship. Colin is working on a phototherapeutic contact lens to treat diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness.
2017
Manuel Alejandro Monge Osorio received the prize in Biotechnology for his work with Professor Azita Emami which involves developing novel techniques for the miniaturization of implantable medical electronics in two important pillars: localization of medical devices and electrical stimulation. Pinaky Bhattacharyya was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Professor Jim Beck investigating an information-theoretic approach to the problem of the optimal sensor placement for Bayesian system identification of structures using response time-history data. Bryan M. Hunter, working with Professor Harry Gray, received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for his work on the development and characterization of a nickel-iron layered double hydroxide water oxidation catalyst with the goal of developing a solar-driven device for the synthesis of fuels, with hydrogen production as a target. The winner of the prize in Nanotechnology was Anupama Thubagere Jagadeesh whose research interests are focused on understanding the engineering principles behind designing and synthesizing programmable molecular machines.. Anupama's graduate advisor was Professor Lulu Qian. The prize in Entrepreneurship was given to Ken Y. Chan who was advised by Professor Viviana Gradinaru. His research interests lie in developing tissue clearing technologies to render whole organs transparent for optical investigation.
2016
Rachel P. Galimidi received the prize in Biotechnology for her work with Professor Pamela Bjorkman aimed to further understand the mechanism of HIV evasion of the humoral immune response. Junle Jiang was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Nadia Lapusta which used probabilistic inversion tools to understand the deep-ocean trench generated tsunamis that occurred during the subduction-zone earthquakes in Japan and Chile. Yinglu Tang working with Dr. Jeff Snyder received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for her work on thermoelectric skutterudites for mid-temperature applications such as automotive waste heat recovery. The second winner in this category was Changhong Zhao who worked with Professor Steven Low to study the control and optimization of modern electric power systems. The winner of the prize in Nanotechnology was Gustavo Rios whose research involves development of a modular, scalable, nanofabricated neural probe system for dense 3-D electrophysiology to study animal brains. Rio's graduate advisor was Professor Thanos Siapas. The prize in Entrepreneurship was given to Anton A. Toutov who was advised by Professor Robert Grubbs. His research interests lie in using fundamental chemistry to development radically new, sustainable ways to make everyday chemical products and generate clean energy.
2015
Alborz Mahdavi received the prize in Biotechnology for his work with David Tirrell developed a set of important new tools for analyzing protein synthesis in complex biological systems. Srivatsan Hulikal was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Nadia Lapusta on linking macroscopic frictional properties of interfaces to their micromechanics. Lingwen Gan working with Steven Low received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for his work on sustainable power systems and specifically the control and optimization of distributed energy resources in future smart grids. The winner of the prize in Nanotechnology was Niranjan Srinivas for designing and building a system of DNA machines that, in bulk, implement an oscillator. Niranjan's advisor was Erik Winfree.
2014
Imran Malik received the prize in Biotechnology for his work with Axel Scherer on designing and demonstrating a sample-to-answer disease detection system based on a low-cost quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). Faisal Amlani was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Oscar Bruno on the development of a new high-order methodology for seismic and elastic wave propagation with applications to earthquakes. This year there were two winners for the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prizes is in Nanotechnology. One winner was Bradley Lyon for his worked with Morteza Gharib on formulating the concept and fabricating the methods for creating carbon nanotube microneedles that delivered drugs painlessly to animals. The other winner of the Nanotechnology prize was Muhammad Mujeeb-U-Rahman who has worked with Axel Scherer on developing an inexpensive implantable and wireless continuous glucose monitor chip which is only 1mmx1mm size.
2013
Pedro Coelho received the prize in Biotechnology for his work with Frances Arnold on biocatalyst engineering that has a myriad of applications in green chemistry. Michael Olson was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Mani Chandy on developing the cloud based service that enables the community seismic network to function. James McKone working with Harry Gray received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for his work on developing new catalysts for solar-driven water splitting to produce hydrogen fuel. The winner of the prize in Nanotechnology was Janna Nawroth for her wide range of experiments including the creation of a freely swimming artificial jellyfish. Janna's advisor was John Dabiri. This year there were two winners for the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokkalis Prizes is in Entrepreneurship. One winner was Aditya Rajagopal for his worked on new pathogen detection approaches that are currently being commercialized. Aditya was advised by Axel Scherer The other winner of the Entrepreneurship prize was Guoan Zheng who has worked with Changhei Yang on a number of entrepreneur efforts including two Caltech startups that are currently commercializing two of his inventions - one is a self-imaging petri-dish platform that can stream microscopy images out of an incubator and the other is a highly novel digital pathology slide scanner.
2012
Philip Romero received the prize in Biotechnology for his work on developing statistical models of proteins with Frances Arnold. Michael Mello was the recipient of the prize in Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Ares Rosakis on developing a novel methodology for identifying the unique ground motion signatures of supershear earthquakes. Leslie O'Leary received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for her pathbreaking work on the properties of semiconductor interfaces with Nate Lewis and Bob Grubbs. This year there were two winners for the prize in Nanotechnology. One winner was Andrew Jennings for his experimental and modeling work in nanomechanics with Julia Greer. The other winner of the Nanotechnology prize was Jordan Raney who has worked with Chiara Daraio to develop new chemical synthesis methods to control the properties of carbon nanotubes.
2011
Fiona Chandra received the prize in Biotechnology for her work on glycolytic oscillations with John Doyle. Shelby Hutchens received the prize in Nanotechnology for her work on carbon nanotube foams with Julia Greer. Vivian Ferry recieved the prize in Entrepreneurship for her work on plasmonic photovoltaics with Harry Atwater. William Chueh received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for his work on solar-driven thermochemical fuel production with Sossina Haile. Matthew Faulkner was the recipient of the newest Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis prize in the area of Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Andreas Krause on using accelerometers in cellphones for detecting shaking from earthquakes.
2010
Xiquan Cui received the prize in Biotechnology for his work on biophotonics with Professor Changhuei Yang; Matt Eichenfield received the prize in Nanotechnology for his work in nanomechanics with Professor Oskar Painter; Morgan Putnam received the prize in Entrepreneurship for work on silicon solar cells with Professor Harry Atwater; and Andrew May received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for his work on thermoelectric materials with Professor Sossina Haile and Dr. Jeff Snyder.
2009
Erik Rodriguez received the prize in Biotechnology; Ke Xu received the prize in Nanotechnology for his work with Professor Michael Roukes; Virgil Griffith received the prize in Entrepreneurship for his work with Professor Ken Pickar; Joshua Spurgeon received the prize in Renewable Energy for his work with Harry Atwater.
2008
Melissa Archer received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for her work with Professor Harry Atwater; John Delacruz and Andrew Downard received the prize in Entrepreneurship for their work with Professor Ken Pickar; Rassul Karabalin received the prize in Nanotechnology for his work with Professor Michael Roukes; Sabastian Maerkl received the prize in Biotechnology.
2007
Ghyrn Loveness received the prize in Entrepreneurship for their work with Professor Ken Pickar; Jang Wook Choi received the prize in Nanotechnology for his work with Professor James R Heath; Robert Walters received the prize in Nanotechnology for his work with Professor Harry Atwater; Jesse Bloom received the prize in Biotechnology for his work with Professor Frances H. Arnold.
2006
Allan Drummond received the prize in Bioengineering for his work with Professor Frances Arnold; John Howard received the prize in Entrepreneurship for his work with Professor Ken Pickar; Michael Hochberg received the prize in Nanotechnology for his work with Professor Axel Scherer.
2005
Jeffrey Endelman received the prize in Bioengineering for his work with Professor Frances Arnold.