Alec M. Fischer is a Research Professor at the Department of Physics at Arizona State University. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from the National university of Engineering in Lima, Peru in 2004 and his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Arizona State University in 2009. His main research work is related to correlating the optical and structural properties of III-nitrides in optoelectronic devices and solar cells. In 2017, he joined STACE in the design of international MW-scale CPV projects. In 2019, he joined Array Photonics for the development of dilute-nitride-based PDs, EELs, and VCSELs for imaging sensing. His current research interests include advanced material characterization of bulk and photonic devices. 

Jonah is pursuing a PhD in physics, where he is researching low- and high-field transport properties of ultra-wide bandgap materials using Monte Carlo simulation methods with Dr. Steve Goodnick. Jonah obtained his first degree, a BS in plant biology, in 2013. He went on to work as a private tutor for several years, specializing in math, chemistry, and biology. He left in 2017 to pursue a second degree in physics. While obtaining his second bachelors, Jonah completed two internships for the BioXFEL program in 2018 and 2019. His research during this time focused on developing iterative phase retrieval algorithms for use in x-ray diffraction and crystallography under Dr. Rick Kirian. He also worked as a teaching assistant in classes such as Math Methods in Physics and Quantum Mechanics. Jonah graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics in 2019, and was appointed to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's List in Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, and Spring 2019. He entered ASU's physics PhD program in Fall 2019. He completed a summer internship at Sandia National Laboratories in 2021 and has worked as a graduate intern at SNL since. 

Richard Wilson is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Program at University of California Riverside. His research focuses on using optical pump/probe techniques to understand thermal transport phenomena and ultrafast material dynamics. As part of the Ultra center, his group is working to understand how structure, composition, and defects govern thermal transport properties in ultra-wide band gap material systems.

Dr. Yuji Zhao is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University. He received the Ph.D. degree from University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2012 under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Professor Shuji Nakamura. Yuji Zhao’s research and teaching interests are in the area of electronic materials, advanced devices, and nanotechnologies. His current research projects involve the materials science and device engineering of wide bandgap semiconductors for energy efficiency, RF and power electronics, and quantum photonics applications. He has co-authored 4 book chapters, over 80 journal papers, over 90 conference proceedings and presentations, and over 20 patents. His awards include the 2019 U.S. Presidential PECASE Award from the White House, which is the highest honor given by the US government to early-career scientists and engineers. He is also a receipt of 2019 MIT TR 35 – China Award, 2019 DoD ARO DURIP Award, 2017 ASU Fulton Outstanding Assistant Professor Award, 2016 DTRA Young Investigator Award, 2015 NASA Early Career Faculty Award, 2015 SFAz Bisgrove Scholar Faculty Award, 2010–2013 UCSB SSLEC Outstanding Research Award, and several best paper awards. Dr. Zhao is leading the Wide bandgap Innovative Device Engineering (WIDE) Lab at Rice University. More information about Dr. Zhao and the Rice WIDE Lab can be found online at http://wide.rice.edu. 

Debdeep Jena received the B. Tech. degree with a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2003. His research and teaching interests are in the MBE growth and device applications of quantum semiconductor heterostructures (currently III-V nitride semiconductors), investigation of charge transport in nanostructured semiconducting materials such as graphene, nanowires and nanocrystals, and their device applications, and in the theory of charge, heat, and spin transport in nanomaterials. He is the author on several journal publications, including articles in Science, Physical Review Letters, and Electron Device Letters among others. He has received two best student paper awards in 2000 and 2002 for his Ph.D. dissertation research, the NSF CAREER award in 2007, and the Joyce award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in 2010.

Fernando Ponce is a professor of physics at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the physics of semiconductor materials, in particular for light emitting and sensing applications. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the National University of Engineering (UNI) in Lima, Peru, and doctorate degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford University. He worked at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California (1980-1984), and at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (1977-1980, 1984-1998). He has contributed to growth and characterization of photovoltaic materials, to the development of materials for optoelectronic applications and of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.  He has co-authored more than 200 papers and eight patents; and has co-edited nine books. He has been involved in promoting science in Latin America, where he has participated in the organization of several international meetings. He was meeting chair of the 1999 Fall MRS Meeting, and chair of the 27th International Conference on the Physics of Semiconductors held in Arizona in 2004. His current interest is in the understanding of the materials properties of III-V nitrides, and their correlation to growth and to device performance for solid state lighting. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society. Since 1999, he has been at the Department of Physics at Arizona State University.

Dr. Afaq Piracha is a Research Associate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan State University. Dr. Piracha completed his PhD in single crystal diamond membranes for nanophotonics and nanomechanics from University of Melbourne, Australia. Before joining MSU, he did postdoc fellowships at Harvard University in diamond nanophotonic quantum devices and diamond on GaN for heat spreaders at University of Bristol, UK. Recently, Dr. Piracha joined ULTRA team to work on high quality CVD growth of doped and undoped diamond for high power electrical applications.

Matthias Muehle studied physics at TU Dresden in Germany, where he did his thesis research at Fraunhofer USA, CCL located at Michigan State University (MSU). He continued to do his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at MSU researching wafer scaling of single crystalline diamond. He is the Manager Diamond Technologies at Fraunhofer USA, CMW and he is also an Adjunct Professor in Electrical Engineering at MSU. His group is researching diamond materials synthesis and device applications, including power electronics, neurological sensors and water treatment. His personal research focus is in diamond growth for WBG integration.

Reza Vatanmeidanshahi received M.S. degrees in Material Chemistry and Physical Chemistry from Sharif University of Technology, Iran in 2011 and from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2014, respectively and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from ASU in 2019. Reza is currently a Postdoc student in Professor Goodnick's lab at ASU. Reza has passion to simulate and model semi-classical charge transport in semiconductors, for device application, in different length scales by means of density functional theory, molecular dynamics, Monte-Carlo algorithms, machine learning method and classical physical models. In ULTRA, Reza focuses on implementing new algorithms into in-house full-band cellular Monte-Carlo code in order to model and calculate high-field charge transport and defect assisted impact ionization coefficients in ultra-wideband gap semiconductors.