Principal Investigator
Students
Dr. Judson Ryckman
Dr. Ryckman joined Clemson faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Fall of 2016. Prior to joining Clemson, Dr. Ryckman worked at Intel Corporation as a Research Scientist in Intel's Silicon Photonics division, where he lead passives component development and 300 mm wafer-scale integration.
Dr. Ryckman’s research interests lie in the development and application of photonic platforms to solve problems in areas of sensing, food-safety, computing/communications, and hardware and information security. Some specific topics of study include: silicon photonic integrated optical devices and passives, porous nanomaterials for flat-optics and high performance sensors, nanophotonic structures for enhanced light-matter interactions, novel nano-fabrication techniques, colorimetric (bio)sensors readable by naked eye or smartphone, and disordered and quasicrystalline optics.
Curriculum Vitae (here) -- Last updated May 2020.
Current Students
Tahmid Talukdar
Tahmid is a graduate student majoring in Electrical Engineering at Clemson University who comes from Sylhet, Bangladesh. Outside of studying, Tahmid is an accomplished guitarist, musician, programmer and a professional gamer. His research interests range from anti-lasing phenomena, to silicon photonics, biosensors, photonic nanocavities, fabrication techniques, and everything that has to do anything with light.
Graduate Students
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Farhan Bin-Tarik
Farhan is an Electrical Engineering graduate student at Clemson University who comes from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Accomplishing his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from University of Dhaka, Farhan worked as a Core Network Engineering at Huawei Technologies Bangladesh Limited. He was also a Trainee at Huawei Headquarters, Shenzhen, China. Besides developing himself as a professional photographer, Farhan was the Champion of Huawei's Global CSR Competition "Seeds for the Future" in 2015 and also was semi-finalist in "Global Innovation Competition 2016". He and his team's action plan on climate change was nominated as the best action plan at the International Workshop on Climate Change 2015 in Malaysia. Farhan's primary research interests are opto-electronics, integrated optics and nano-photonics.
Saddam Gafsi
Saddam is from Bizerta, a coastal city of Tunisia, a Mediterranean country. He received the BS and M. Eng. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Engineering School of Communications of Tunis (Sup’Com), Tunisia, in 2016 and The University of Idaho, ID, USA, in 2018, respectively. He is currently working toward completion of a Ph.D. program in the photonics program. His research interests revolve around the fields of electromagnetics, opto-electronics, integrated optics, quantum and statistical physics, communications and information theory as well as artificial intelligence.
Nithesh Kumar
Nithesh is a graduate student at Clemson University majoring in Electrical Engineering. He graduated from the University of New Haven, Connecticut in 2017 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Subsequently, he worked as an R&D hardware electrical engineer at Fiber Mountain inc. from 2017-2020. Some of his research interests include, opto-electronics, bio-electronics and biosensors. Nithesh’s primary research is on rugate based optical sensors for colorimetric biosensing. In his spare time, he loves to play tennis.
Derrick Joyce
Derrick is a Computer Engineering undergraduate student at Clemson University who comes from Blythewood, SC. He joined the in Summer 2021 as part of Clemson's SURE program. Beyond academia, Derrick is a gifted musician, cardistry enthusiast, and enjoys sporting activities. His research interests include robotics, software engineering, systems engineering, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence.
Anna Hardison
Anna is a BS/MS student majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering. She joined the Ryckman lab in the Spring of 2021. Her current research is focused on nanomanufacturing of flat optical devices.
Students interested in research opportunities should contact Dr. Ryckman to inquire.
Past Students
Grayson Glanton
Grayson performed research in our group as a Junior and Senior Computer Engineering and Physics major. His research involved developing novel approaches for label free biosensors based on surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Outside of research he enjoys playing tennis and reading.
Ethan Kirkland
Ethan performed research in our group as a junior and senior in materials science and engineering with interest in nanoparticle synthesis and graphene production and application. His hobbies include spending time with family and friends, playing tennis, running, and the occasional video game.
Gabe Allen
Gabe joined us to conduct research through the Clemson SURE program 2017. He is a rising Junior at Western Michigan University majoring in Electrical Engineering with a Minor in Applied Mathematics. His research is on porous silicon based optical waveguide biosensors. In his free time, he enjoys participating in service events through WMU’s Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society chapter as well as going to the gym and the beach.
Mark Anayee
Mark is interested in nanomanufacturing of silicon, graphene, and other 2D materials and the study of their electrical and optical properties as they relate to computing and sensing applications. Other interests include the synthesis of new crystalline ceramic materials for use in energy storage devices such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). His hobbies include watching Barcelona soccer games, playing soccer outside, and watching movies.
Aliya Langley
Aliya performed research with us through the Charles Townes Summer Program 2017. She is a Junior Biochemistry major from San Diego, California. Her interests include music, fashion, watching and playing sports, doing volunteer work, and spending quality time with family and friends.
Rachella Mariano
Rachella is a Chemical Engineering Major with a Business Administration Minor, from Goose Creek, South Carolina. Aside from studying, she loves crafting, hiking and volunteering with her Service Sorority. Her research focused on developing label free biosensors with an improved response time and limit of detection.
Nicholas Conrad
Nick performed research with us through the Charles Townes Summer Program 2018. The topic of his research project was 'Porous silicon based colorimetric sensing with a smartphone'.
Viviana Arrunategui
Viviana performed research with us through the SURE Program 2018. Her research focused on low loss porous silicon waveguides for high surface area biosensing applications.
Julius Perez
Julius performed research with us through the SURE Program 2019. His research focused on a novel process for patterning refractive index on the surface of a chip with applications in planar and meta-optics.
Bria McCoy
Bria performed research with us through the Charles Townes Summer Program 2019. The topic of her research focused on pushing colorimetric sensors to new limits.
Sarah Timmins
Sarah performed research in our group as a junior and senior in materials science and engineering. The topic of her research focused on developing novel colorimetric sensors and tuning the optical/material properties of nanostructured porous silicon films.
Nazmus Sakib
Nazmus was a graduate student in Electrical Engineering hailing from Dhaka, Bangladesh and graduated with his M.S. in 2019. He previously completed his Master of Science from University of Stuttgart, Germany, and was previously a software engineer at Samsung R&D Institute, Bangladesh and Woodward GmbH in Germany. At Clemson, his master's thesis was entitled "Theory of extreme optical concentration in all-dielectric waveguides" [link].