Soon Wei Daniel Lim

Incoming Nanyang Assistant Professor, Schmidt Science Fellow

Stanford, California, United States

About

I am an interdisciplinary applied physicist with a unique background in both life and physical sciences. I have research experience in mouse model studies of neurodegeneration, through to self-assembled microstructured surfaces, micro-optical device fabrication with bespoke surface tension force fields, particle-laden computational fluid dynamics, and nanoscale systems to exert arbitrary wavefront control.

Experience

  • Schmidt Science Fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine
    Nov 2023 - Present · 2 yrs 9 mos

    Advisor: Professor Steven Chu.

  • Harvard University ()
    • Doctoral Researcher
      Sep 2018 - Nov 2023 · 5 yrs 3 mos

      Advisor: Professor Federico Capasso. Investigated counter-intuitive fundamental behavior of structured light fields containing optical singularities (“dark” regions of light). Derived and experimentally demonstrated (with nanostructured optical meta-surfaces) a wavefront shaping technique to produce 0D and 2D singularities that are not found naturally. Achieved a flat lens that uses extremely deep and narrow holes, the highest aspect ratio nanostructures for wavefront shaping as of 2023. Derived a physics-inspired algorithm to solve a critical memory bottleneck in attaining differentiable grid-based simulators. Mentored one undergraduate (now PhD student, University of Toronto) and one high school student (now Harvard undergraduate).

    • Graduate Teaching Fellow
      Aug 2019 - Dec 2019 · 5 mos

      Teaching Fellow for ENG-SCI 153/Physics 123/Physics 223: Electronics for Scientists, by Prof. Thomas Hayes and David Abrams.

  • Research Officer at A*STAR Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI)
    Jan 2018 - Jul 2018 · 7 mos

    Advisor: Professor Shireen Goh (now at SUTD, Singapore). Multiphase computational fluid dynamics in inertial microfluidics for bioreactor applications.

  • Research Engineer at Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology
    Jul 2017 - Dec 2017 · 6 mos

    Advisor: Professor Wong Liang Jie (now at NTU, Singapore). High energy light-matter interactions in pursuit of compact coherent X-ray sources.

  • Caltech (2 yrs 6 mos)
    • Undergraduate Research Assistant
      Jan 2015 - Jun 2017 · 2 yrs 6 mos

      Advisor: Professor Sandra M. Troian. Development and characterization of techniques for modulating thermocapillary forces to sculpt fluid interfaces for micro-optical application.

    • Teaching Assistant
      Sep 2016 - Dec 2016 · 4 mos

      Laboratory Teaching Assistant for the course Physics 5: Analog Electronics for Physicists, Fall 2016-2017.