Ali Adibi

Ali Adibi’s work with optics and photonics could lead to faster computers, blood tests without drawing blood and tiny sensors that can detect trace amounts of a harmful substance.

Adibi is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the director for center for Advanced Processing-tools for Electromagnetic/acoustics Xtals (short for crystals) or APEX at Georgia Tech. His research interests include holographic data storage; holographic optical elements for optical communications; three-dimensional (3D) optical pattern recognition, design, characterization and applications of photonic crystals for chip-scale wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and biosensors; spectrometers for bio and environmental sensing; ultra-dense and ultra-fast optical interconnects; and optical communication and networking.

Adibi is the recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the Packard Fellowship (from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation), the NSF CAREER Award (from National Science Foundation) and the SCEEE Young Faculty Development Award (from the Southeastern Center for Electrical Engineering Education).

Adibi received his B.S. from Shiraz University (Iran) in 1990, and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology (1994) and the California Institute of Technology (1999), respectively. His Ph.D. research resulted in a breakthrough in persistent holographic storage in photorefractive crystals. He worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology from 1999 to 2000.