Marko Loncar approved for promotion to tenured full professor

Cambridge, Mass. - March 15, 2012 - Harvard President Drew Faust has approved Marko Lončar for promotion to the role of full professor with tenure at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

An expert in nanophotonics and quantum optics, Lončar studies the interactions of light and matter at the nano-scale. His current work involves controlling the behavior of photons, trapping and releasing them at a practical rate within tiny diamond structures.

In a sense, he is working to build a network of fiber-optic cables at the scale of an extremely small computer chip. The end goal of this work is to integrate sophisticated optical and microelectronic technologies into novel devices for rapid and efficient communication, signal processing, and biological sensing.

Lončar's research blends the theoretical with the experimental, ranging from the development of sophisticated numerical models, which explore the underlying physics of nanophotonics and quantum phenomena, to new fabrication techniques for nanoscale structures.

Lončar studied electrical engineering at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

He came to Harvard in October 2003 as a postdoctoral scholar in applied physics, and in July 2006 became an assistant (later associate) professor of electrical engineering.

In 2009, Lončar received the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award and in 2010 was granted a research fellowship by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Lončar currently teaches ES 50, "Introduction to Electrical Engineering," and ES 273, "Optics and Photonics."