Yang Zhao
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Biography
Dr. Yang Zhao is currently a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He served as the Department Chair from 2000 to 2013. During his tenure as Chair, he recruited eight new faculty members, four of whom eventually received the NSF CAREER Award. He also nominated five ECE faculty members who went on to win the WSU President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. Additionally, he raised funds to establish the Endowed Forest E. Brammer Lecture Series and increased the department’s annual research expenditures from under $2 million in 1999 to $5 million in 2012.
Dr. Zhao conducts research in photonics and optics. He has over 100 publications in top-tier journals and conferences and holds three U.S. patents. His work has been featured in leading journals such as Science and Physics World. He has been invited to serve on research review panels for the National Science Foundation, ASEE/ONR, the National Science Research Council of Canada, the Changjiang Scholar Program of China, Michigan State Research Funds, and the State of Kentucky.
Dr. Zhao is a recipient of the WSU Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award.
Research Interests
Photonic devices, optical sensing and communications, nanoscale optics
Publications
Selected Publications:
S. F. Wu, Y. Lu, C. Ernest, Y. Zhao, and L. Chen, “Laser-assisted see-through technology for locating sound sources inside a structure,” Scientific Reports, 14, Article 3899, (2024)
A. Siraji and Y. Zhao, “Scalar diffraction analysis of the dispersion effect on the focal length of low-index thin flat lenses,” Opt. Continuum 1, 2245-2251 (2022)
B. Zhang, G. Chen, M. M-C. Cheng, J. C-M Chen, and Y. Zhao, “Motion detection based on 3D-printed compound eyes,” OSA Continuum, 3, 2553-2563, (2020)
A. Siraji and Y. Zhao, “Design and analysis of thin optical lens composed of low-index subwavelength structures,” Appl. Opt., 58, pp. 4654-4664 (2019). [Editor’s Pick]
Y. Zhao, “Impact of technology on student cheating,” TechCentury, Vol. 26, 17-18, (2018)
A. Siraji, Y Zhao, “Simple effective medium approximation with Rayleigh scattering” Optics letters, 42, 1860-1863, (2017)
A. Shahini, J. Xia, Z. Zhou, Y. Zhao, and M. Cheng, “Versatile miniature tunable liquid lenses using transparent graphene electrodes,” Langmuir, 32, 1658-1665, (2016)
A. Siraji and Y. Zhao, “High sensitivity and high Q-factor glass photonic crystal cavity and its applications as sensors,” Opt. Lett., 40, 1508 (2015)
E. Wang and Y. Zhao, “Etching of nanostructures on soda-lime glass,” Opt. Lett., 39, 3748-3751 (2014)
Education
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University
M.S., Electrical Engineering, The Ohio State University
B.S., Optical Engineering, Zhejiang University