Naomi Halas

Naomi J. Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, and physics at Rice University.^[1] She is also the founding director of Rice University Laboratory for Nanophotonics, and the Smalley-Curl Institute.^[2] She invented the first nanoparticle with tunable plasmonic resonances, which are controlled by their shape and structure,^[3] and has won numerous awards for her pioneering work in the field of nanophotonics and plasmonics. She was also part of a team that developed the first dark pulse soliton in 1987 while working for IBM.

She is a Fellow of nine professional societies, including Optica, the American Physical Society, the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Halas was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2014 for nanoscale engineering of optical resonances and lineshapes.

Her current research at Rice University focuses on studying light-matter interaction in plasmonic nanoparticles for applications in chemical sensing, biomedical sciences, catalysis, and energy.^[4]