Carlos A. Rios Ocampo

Carlos A. Rios Ocampo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, with affiliations to the Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics (IREAP), Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Oxford (2017), an M.S. in Optics and Photonics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Antioquia, Colombia (2010). His research focuses on experimental and computational optics, particularly phase-change materials, nanoscale light-matter interactions, and photonic integrated circuits. Notably, he pioneered the world’s first light-based memory chip capable of in-memory computations.

Research interests include photonic materials, neuromorphic computing, and high-speed photonic memory systems. He has published extensively in journals like Nature Photonics, Advanced Materials, and Science Advances. Awards include the Clarendon Scholarship, Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, and recognition as a Rising Stars of Light Finalist. He teaches courses such as Introduction to Materials Engineering and Advanced Electronic and Optical Materials.

Current projects involve NSF-funded research on semiconductor materials and collaborations with industry leaders like TSMC and Apple. His lab develops reconfigurable photonic circuits and explores applications in quantum processing and energy-efficient data storage.