Team

Principal Investigator



“Let’s examine materials at the small scale and not lose sight of the big picture.”

Prof. Nishant Garg
Associate Professor
(217) 300-9448
garg-group@illinois.edu
CV



Postdoctoral Researchers (1)

Dr. Yujia Min

Postdoc (2022 – Present)

PhD: Washington University in

St. Louis (2017)

PhD Candidates (12)


Bayezid Baten

PhD Candidate (2021 – Present)

MS: Bangladesh Univ. of Eng. & Tech. (2019)

BS: Bangladesh Univ. of Eng. & Tech. (2017)


Vikram Kumar

PhD Candidate (2021 – Present)

MS: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2021)

BS: Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi (2018)


Chirayu Kothari

PhD Candidate (2021 – Present)

MS: The University of Tokyo (2021)

BS: Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (2019)


Hyeonseok Jee

PhD Candidate (2021 – Present)

BS+MS: Hanyang University (2020)


Brandy Diggs-McGee

PhD Candidate (2021 – Present)

BS+MS: North Carolina A&T State University (2017)


Farjad Iqbal

PhD Candidate (2022 – Present)

MS: Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2020)

BS: University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore (2016)


Tausif Elahi

PhD Candidate (2022 – Present)

BS+MS: Bangladesh Univ. of Eng. & Tech. (2021)


Aysan Farajnia

PhD Candidate (2023 – Present)

BS+MS: Shahid Beheshti University (2020)


Momina Rauf

PhD Candidate (2023 – Present)

MS: National University of Sciences and Technology (2019)


Gyeongryul Kim

PhD Candidate (2024 – Present)

BS+MS: Hanyang University (2023)


Omar F. Durrani

PhD Candidate (2025 – Present)

MS: University of Minnesota Duluth (2025)

BS: IIT Bhubaneshwar (2017)

Fazal Hussain

PhD Candidate (2025 – Present)

MS: Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi (2025)

BS: NUST Pakistan (2023)



MS Candidates (8)


Nanzeeba Tabassum

MS Candidate (2023 – Present)

BS: Military Institute of Science and Technology (2018)


Ayyan Iqbal

MS Candidate (2024 – Present)

BS: University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore (2022)


Bhuvesh Jaiswal

MS Candidate (2024 – Present)

BS: IIT Gandhinagar (2024)


Achyuth Kumar

MS Candidate (2025 – Present)

BS: National Institute of Technology Warangal (2024)


Bilal Khan

MS Candidate (2025 – Present)

BS: Middle East Technical University (2024)


Syed Rafiuzzaman

MS Candidate (2025 – Present)

BS: Bangladesh University of Engineering & Tech. (BUET) (2024)


Ajaya Khatri

MS Candidate (2025 – Present)

BS: Tribhuvan University (2023)


Vania Moreno-Colin

MS Candidate (2025 – Present)

BS: University of Washington, Seattle (2025)



Visiting Scholars (1)

Sandra Mujombi (2025)

Undergraduate Students (16)

Fall 2025: Amy Choi, Shouri Dharanipragada, Christopher Monzon, Mohammed Wasif Umair, Syafino Yunalfian, Aryan Aggarwal, Esuigen Batsaikhan, Riddhi Chauhan, Ivan Favila, Elvin Flores, Arham Jain, Putra Ganesha Karmayoga, Venkata Krishna Teja Kolla, Shinuk Lee, Thomas Moreno, Ji Won Park, Benjamin Tran, Thai Vu Tran, Jihyun Seo

Alumni

Graduate (15) & Postdoc (1):

2025: Hossein Kabir (PhD, in), Sunav Dahal (MS, in), Nischal Kanel (MS, in) Yaman Garg (MS, in) Faisal Qadri (PhD, in)
 
2024: Krishna C. Polavaram (PhD, in), Hamza Samouh (Postdoc, in), Sudharsan Rathnakumar (MS, in), Mohamed Abdelrahman (MS, in)
 
2023: Omar Abdelrahman (MS, in), Jacob Doehring (MS, in), Dhanush S. Bejjarapu (MS, in), Andrew Witte (MS, in)
 
2022: Pablo Romero (MS, in), Sonali Srivastava (MS, in), Ravi Sharma (MS, in)

Undergraduate (77):

2025: Geovany Arias, Juhnyun Back, Hayden Bui, Manav Chopda, Yating Feng, Vishal Kavitha, Dongheon Lee, Jayden Naratadam, Fabian Padron, Saniya Wasti, HaoChen Xia, Zayd Khan, Madhav Agrawal, Ehyeok Choi, Laurel Decker, Xinyi Hu, Cam Nguyen Huynh, Sangmin Kim, Yangze Liu

2024: Xiaorui Gu, Emily Anak Victor Libau, Izzatul H S Izam, Mackenzie Kimble, Megan Otto, Andrea Nava, Jenny Hu, Jiewen Chen, Jocelyn Pytel, Rawda Abdeltawab, Vira Kasprova, Encheng Xie, Conor Blount, Karan Jain, Duc Nguyen, Corey Yin, Ayush Jayakannan, Manav Balasubramanian Sankaran, Macey DeMoss, Clare McDonough, Charles Knight

2023: Marla Portillo, Rydon Jalley, Jiwon Park, Han Sae Cho, Ben Manaugh, Kyle Langenstein, Jiarui Yu, Daniel Sawai, Jordan Westphal, Wan Tsz Yik, Halle-Mari Santiago, Chung-Yen Fann, Jessica Nguyen

2022: Grant E. Siegmund, Mary De Guzman, Jee Min Kim, Nurul Husna, Saranya Yegappan, Yize Chen, Evan Saebeler, Yunseok Lee, Boyang Zhang, Micah Rubel, Shiven Garg, Min Young Kim, Muskan Jain

2021: Ishaan Murarka, Nithiya Vivagandan, Ishita Purwar

2020: Jacob Doehring, Xinyu Teng, Ananya Mittal, Bhagya Devnani, Matthew Grendzinski

2019: Cyrus Wang, Dev Patel, Lewis Monaxios, Paul Segovich, Heather Gathman

Previous Group Photos

Last Updated: January 31st, 2026x