People
The group
A small experimental group in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland, with close ties to Physics, Electrical Engineering, the Joint Quantum Institute, and NIST.
Principal investigator
You Zhou
You Zhou is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received a B.S. in Physics from Peking University in 2010 and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University in 2015, working with Shriram Ramanathan on electrically driven phase transitions in correlated oxides. As a postdoctoral fellow with Hongkun Park at Harvard he turned to excitons and correlated electrons in atomically thin semiconductors, and he joined the Maryland faculty in 2021.
His group studies emergent quantum phases of electrons and excitons in van der Waals heterostructures and the optical tools that create, probe, and control them. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the Department of Energy Early Career Award, the IUPAP Early Career Scientist Prize in Condensed Matter, and the 2DM Young Scientist Award, and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Science.
- Education
- Ph.D. Applied Physics, Harvard University, 2015
B.S. Physics, Peking University, 2010 - Appointments
- Associate Professor, University of Maryland, 2026–
Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, 2021–2026
Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 2015–2020 - Contact
- youzhou@umd.edu · CV (PDF) · Google Scholar
Members
Postdocs, students, and research staff.
Research faculty and scientists
Assistant Research Professor
Research Scientist
Postdoctoral researchers
Postdoctoral Researcher, 2024–
Ph.D. University of Minnesota Twin Cities, 2024
Postdoctoral Researcher, 2025– (co-advised with Mohammad Hafezi)
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2025
Postdoctoral Researcher, 2026–
Ph.D. University of Maryland, 2026
Graduate students
Ph.D. student, Materials Science and Engineering (co-advised with Neil Zimmerman, NIST)
FIAP Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award, APS March Meeting 2026
Ph.D. student, Electrical Engineering
Undergraduate researchers
- Sihoon Sung
- Kevan Kazeminezhad
- Jason Zhang
- Ritveek Govardhanam
- Gavin Bogdan
- Anderson C. Jones
- Didi Zhang
- Hannah Magruder
- Naima Haidara
Alumni
Ph.D. 2026, Physics (co-advised with Mohammad Hafezi)
Now: Postdoctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter
Ph.D. 2025; Postdoctoral Researcher 2025–2026, Materials Science and Engineering
Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship, 2025
Now: Research Scientist, Western Digital
Postdoctoral Researcher, 2022–2024
Now: Associate Professor, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Former undergraduate researchers
- Sam Felsenfeld, now at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
- Huda Kemal
- Caleb Bos
- Olivia Milner
- Karandeep Takhtani, now at First Solar
- Dhruv Srinivasan
- Kim Taylor
- Jacob Richardson
- William Mah, now at Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
- Suraj Maurya, now at Boeing
- Catherine Lewis
- Francesco Bertini
Former high-school researchers
- Ellie Montemayor, now at Physics, MIT
- Kirill Mamantov
- Dhruva Arun, now at Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Join
Openings
We have openings for postdoctoral researchers and research scientists, and we welcome undergraduate and graduate students at all levels; no prior experience is required. Members gain hands-on experience in materials synthesis, nanofabrication, electronics, cryogenic optics, and programming, and work on projects that combine all of them. If you are interested in joining, write to You Zhou at youzhou@umd.edu with a short note about your background and interests.