Jelena Vuckovic

Jelena Vuckovic is the Jensen Huang Professor of Global Leadership in the School of Engineering, Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Professor by courtesy of Applied Physics at Stanford University, where she has been on the faculty since 2003. She leads the Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab in the Ginzton Laboratory. Vuckovic received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2002. She previously held positions as postdoctoral scholar and acting assistant professor at Stanford, and was named Frederick E. Terman Fellow in 2003. She served as Fortinet Founders Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department from 2021 to 2023 and as the inaugural director of QFARM, the Stanford-SLAC Quantum Science and Engineering Initiative, from 2019 to 2021. Vuckovic is a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2023 and an External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics since 2024.

Her research interests are in photonics, quantum science and engineering, quantum optics, photonics inverse design, nonlinear optics, and cavity quantum electrodynamics. The Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab develops semiconductor-based photonic chip-scale systems to explore new regimes of light-matter interaction and create platforms for classical and quantum information processing technologies. Current efforts include semiconductor quantum systems using diamond, silicon carbide, and gallium arsenide for quantum simulators, networks, and sensors; heterogeneously integrated, inverse-designed photonics for optical interconnects, computing, and sensors; and on-chip integrated laser systems, including Ti:sapphire lasers. Key publications include "Indistinguishable photons from a single-photon device" (Nature, 2002), "Inverse design in nanophotonics" (Nature Photonics, 2018), "On-chip integrated laser-driven particle accelerator" (Science, 2020), and "Inverse-designed diamond photonics" (Nature Communications, 2019). Vuckovic has earned the 2026 R. W. Wood Prize from Optica, 2025 ZEISS Research Award, 2022 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, 2023 Geoffrey Frew Fellowship from the Australian Academy of Sciences, 2019 IET A. F. Harvey Engineering Research Prize, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2007), Humboldt Prize (2010), and fellowships from the American Physical Society, Optica, and IEEE. She was the Mildred Dresselhaus Lecturer at MIT in 2021 and James Gordon Memorial Speaker in 2020. Vuckovic is lead editor of Physical Review Applied, serves on the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is co-founder and lead scientific advisor of SPINS Photonics.

Professional Email: jela@stanford.edu