Selim Shahriar

Selim Shahriar is a Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, holding a joint appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He serves as head of the Laboratory for Atomic and Photonic Technologies (LAPT), Director of the Division of Solid State and Photonics in EECS, and maintains affiliations with the Center for Photonic Communication and Computing, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and the NSF Center for Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) on Quantum Coherent Matter and Fields.

His research spans gravitational wave detection, quantum sensing, photonics, and atomic physics, with notable contributions to the 2016 gravitational wave discovery through LIGO. Current laboratory projects include fast-light atomic gyroscopes for precision rotation sensing, hybrid optoelectronic correlators for ultra-fast image processing, photonic integrated circuits for optical system miniaturization, and squeezing-enhanced atomic sensors for quantum metrology applications. His work on fast-light techniques demonstrated potential sensitivity improvements of ~20x for gravitational wave detectors, expanding detectable cosmic volume by nearly 8000x.

Professor Shahriar has mentored award-winning graduate students including Zifan Zhou (2021 ECE Best PhD Thesis Award recipient) and Julian Gamboa (2023 Northwestern Presidential Fellow and 2021 SPIE Education Scholar). His laboratory maintains active research partnerships with LIGO and focuses on translating quantum and photonic innovations into practical measurement technologies.

The Laboratory for Atomic and Photonic Technologies (LAPT) operates as a multidisciplinary hub advancing atomic physics and photonics applications. Current initiatives include quantum gyroscopes using point-source atom interferometry, statistical squeezing for atomic clocks, holographic wavelength division multiplexing systems, and photonic integrated circuits targeting 780nm operation for quantum sensing miniaturization. The lab's research directly supports gravitational wave astronomy while developing commercializable technologies in optical communications and precision metrology.