Halas Bio
Naomi J. Halas
Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Physics & Astronomy
Director, Laboratory for Nanophotonics
Nanoengineering, Plasmonics, Nanophotonics
B.A. (1980) La Salle College, magna cum laude
M.A. (1984) Bryn Mawr College
Ph.D. (1986) Bryn Mawr College
D.Sc. (2007) La Salle University
Naomi Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and founding director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University. She is the Director of the Smalley-Curl Institute.
She was a graduate research fellow at IBM Research, Yorktown, NY, served as a postdoctoral associate at AT&T Bell Laboratories and joined the Rice faculty in 1990. Halas is one of the pioneering researchers in the field of plasmonics, creating the concept of the “tunable plasmon” and inventing a family of nanoparticles with resonances spanning the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum. Halas pursues fundamental studies of coupled plasmonic systems as well as applications of plasmonics in biomedicine, optoelectronics, chemical sensing, photocatalysis, and most recently in solar energy and sustainability, with ‘solar steam’ technology. She is author of more than 300 refereed publications, has more than fifteen issued patents, has presented more than 500 invited talks, and has been cited more than 84,000 times (over 60,000 citations and H=123 on Web of Science, over 84,000 citations and H=142 on Google Scholar). She is co-founder of Nanospectra Biosciences, a Houston-based company developing photothermal therapies for cancer and other diseases based on her nanoparticles, currently in multiple clinical trials, and is currently transferring other technologies from her laboratory. Halas is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering in 2014, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of the American Physical Society Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids, the Willis E. Lamb Award, and the Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America. She is a Fellow of OSA, APS, SPIE, IEEE, MRS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Inventors. She has been a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow of the U.S. Department of Defense and an advisor to the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Photonics, Materials Horizons, Chemical Physics Letters and Laser and Photonics Reviews, and an Associate Editor of Nano Letters.
Naomi J. Halas Curriculum Vitae
(updated May, 2019)
Contact Information:
Naomi J. Halas
281 Brockman Hall
ECE Department
Rice University
6100 Main St MS 378
Houston, TX 77005-1892
713-348-5612
713-348-5686 fax