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Aaswath P. Raman
Ph.D. Candidate, Applied Physics, Fan Group, Stanford University, 2007 -
S.M., Computer Science, Harvard University, 2006
A.B. cum laude, Physics and Astronomy
& Astrophysics, Harvard University, 2006
[Curriculum Vitae]
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| Research Interests
My interests include nanophotonics, photovoltaics, the theory and simulation of plasmonic and polaritonic structures, metamaterials, and quantum optics.
I am currently focused on developing nanophotonic structures that deliver broad spectrum absorption enhancement for use in thin-film and organic solar cells, and related theoretical models of enhancement in devices with arbitrary photonic band structures. I am a member of Shanhui Fan's group, and am also affiliated with/supported by the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics here at Stanford. Another direction I am currently pursuing involves developing novel theoretical and numerical methods of understanding metamaterials and nanostructures composed of plasmonic or polaritonic materials, with a view to their use in a variety of applications.
I am also interested in policy issues surrounding renewable energy and infrastructure development in both the developing and developed world; in particular, the potential for distributed energy technologies like photovoltaics to leapfrog over the paucity of traditional power/grid infrastructure in developing countries. Meeting our energy needs in a minimally-polluting, financially sound and inequity-reducing way is one of the great challenges of our time; I hope to contribute in some small way to this endeavor, scientifically and otherwise.
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| Selected Technical Publications
A.
Raman et al.
"A Keplerian Disk around the Herbig Ae star HD169142"
April 2006, The Astronomical Journal.
[ps]
[pdf]
[arXiv]
A.
Raman. "A
Dictionary-Augmented Maximum Entropy Tagging Approach to Chinese
Word Segmentation" 2006. CS299r Final Paper.
A.
Raman. "Asymptotic
Analysis of a Radiative Line Transfer Scattering Problem"
2006. Applied Math 201 Final Paper. (A summary
of a somewhat obscure -- and not very useful -- topic..)
L.
Peshkin and A. Raman.
"Intelligent Summarization of Text Documents" 2003.
7th Annual ICCNS. [ps]
[pdf]
[presentation
poster ]
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| Bio
To first order, I'm
from Calgary,
Alberta,
Canada,
but have had the good fortune of living in plenty of other
places. I
was born on a particularly rainy monsoon day in
Bombay,
but lived for most of my early life in the oil-rich
desert "paradise" otherwise known as Kuwait;
with a two year interlude back in Bombay due to Gulf War I.
Tired of all that hot weather, my family and I moved to a
rural town in eastern Canada,
Bay Roberts, Newfoundland,
for two years. And finally in 1996, we moved to the lovely, sometimes frigid,
city of Calgary in Western Canada.
After college I worked on the Live Search team at Microsoft for a year as a Program Manager dealing with webspam. If you search for my name you can find transcripts of the many clever and witty things I've said at search-engine conferences. (Please don't email me saying they're not witty.. you're wrong, and more importantly, I like deluding myself). I got to pontificate some, and now have the option of pursuing a lucrative career in SEO (not). It was an interesting experience, but I decided to return to my earlier academic interests.
In the slightly more distant past I did some research in machine learning
and natural language processing, and also
some astronomy research on protoplanetary
disks around young stars. I'm also a member of the large Capasso group diaspora here at Stanford, having worked there as an undergrad.
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| Other Writings
"Social
Justice and the Migration of Highly Skilled Elites"
2005.
Final Paper for Philosophy 277 - Social Justice and Cultural
Diversity, taught by Amartya Sen and Phillippe van Parijis.
"Minorities
among Minorities: Identity and Existence in Modern India"
2003. Final Paper for Seminar on Contemporary
India - my attempt to be a Social Anthropologist. Later
published in The Harvard South Asian Journal.
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| Short Stories Worth Reading
The
Last Question by
Isaac Asimov
The Third
and Final Continent by Jhumpa Lahiri |