Rate My Professor Alessandro Alabastri

Alessandro Alabastri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, contributing to the Engineering faculty. He received his BSc in 2007 and MSc in 2009 in Engineering Physics from Politecnico di Milano, specializing in Nano-Optics and Photonics, with his Master's project at the Technical University of Denmark on the optical characterization of metamaterials. In 2014, he earned his PhD in Nanosciences from the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Genoa, focusing on computational modeling of plasmonic structures. In 2015, he was a Visiting Researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Molecular Foundry. He joined Rice University as a Postdoctoral Fellow from 2015 to 2016, followed by a NEWT Postdoctoral Leadership Fellowship from 2016 to 2018, during which he worked on theoretical nanophotonics and solar distillation devices. From 2018 to 2020, he served as Texas Instruments Research Assistant Professor, and in 2020, he was promoted to his current tenure-track Assistant Professor position. He also directs the Applied Physics Graduate Program and is a core member of the Smalley-Curl Institute.

Dr. Alabastri specializes in nanophotonics and computational modeling of photo-thermal interactions in complex nanostructures, particularly light-to-heat conversion mechanisms to maximize heat dissipation in nanoparticle-based systems. His research includes predictive models for energy-conversion systems such as Photon Enhanced Thermionic Emission devices developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency and Nanophotonics Enabled Solar Membrane Distillation modules at Rice University. Notable publications include "Nanophotonics-enabled solar membrane distillation for off-grid water purification" in PNAS (2017). His honors encompass the 2018 Texas Instruments Research Professorship from Rice University, the 2016 NEWT Postdoctoral Leadership Fellowship, the 2017 Association of American Universities University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Showcase, the 2017 I-Corps Program as Co-PI, and the 2014 ARIADNA grant from ESA as Co-PI. Recent lab achievements include second place in the 2025 RELX Environmental Challenge and publications in Nature Water and ACS Nano, underscoring his influence in theoretical and computational nanophotonics for light harvesting and energy applications.