Roark Chao

Education

• University of California, Santa Barbara - B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (2024)
  • Minor in Physics

Bio

Hey! I'm Roark (pronounced like "dork", but with an 'r' instead of a 'd'), and I'm an undergraduate/graduate student in the BS/MS Electrical and Computer Engineering program here at UCSB. I joined the group in the beginning of 2022 as a B.S. student with a project focused on developing novel metasurfaces for the enhancement of magnetic-dipole-like emission in the visible spectrum. Since then, I've become involved in projects focused around metasurface vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), beam steering, and retroreflectors. Light-matter interactions are particularly interesting to me because I'd like to see a world where devices are so thin and light that dropping a phone onto my face when I sleep will NOT wake me up. Outside of science, I tend to be found in the wild doing random things that I find funny (i.e. trolling)