Yifei Zhang

Dr. Zhang is currently an optical engineer at Microsoft Hololens in Redmond, Washington. He completed his Ph.D. at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in June 2021. His PhD dissertation focused on developing new optical phase change materials (PCMs) and exploring their applications integrated photonics and metasurface devices. Dr. Zhang was a recipient of the Optics & Photonics Education Scholarship from the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) in 2020. He had won two Best Student Paper Awards at the OSA Optical Design and Fabrication Congress in 2021 and the SPIE Optics + Photonics Conference in 2019, respectively. Additionally, his work on phase-change optical metamaterials has been selected to be included in “Optics in 2021” by the Optics & Photonics News, which highlights 30 most exciting optics R&D results emerged in 2021.

He earned a Bachelor’s of Science in the School of Physics from Peking University in Beijing, China as an outstanding graduate. Before college, Yifei developed an interest in physics at an early stage. He was the gold medalist for the 13^th Asian Physics Olympiad and the 28^th China Physics Olympiad.

Yifei enjoys being involved in his research communities, particularly the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) community. He had given multiple presentations during ICG 2019 and a keynote speech at GOMD 2020. He was the recipient of the Norbert J. Kreidl Award from the ACerS in 2020, which is bestowed annually to one graduate student recognizing research excellence in glass and optical materials.

Currently at Microsoft Hololens, Yifei specializes in bringing new optical materials and device concepts into the world of mixed reality.