Professor Howard (Ho Wai) Lee
Howard Lee is currently a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Physics (Cavendish Laboratory) and NanoPhotonics Centre at the University of Cambridge, as well as Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall. Additionally, he serves as a Visiting Professor and Humboldt Fellow in Ferenc Krausz’s Division at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany.
Before joining UCI in 2020, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Baylor University and IQSE Fellow and visiting professor in the Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering (IQSE) at TexasA&M. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Caltech, working with Prof. Harry Atwater in active plasmonics/metasurfaces. He received his PhD in Physics from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Philip Russell. His work on nano-optics, plasmonics.metasurfaces, and specialty optical fibers has led to 60 journal publications in various journals, as well as 100 invited talks and 200 conference papers. Dr. Lee is a recipient of a 2026 Humboldt Fellow for Experienced Researcher, a 2026 Visiting Fellow in Clare Hall at University of Cambridge, a 2025 Optica Fellow, a 2025 Moore Experimental Physics Investigator, a 2025 IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer, a 2024 SPIE Fellow, 2023 Finalist of Moore Inventor Fellow, a 2023 UCI Beall Innovation Award in Physical Sciences, a 2022 Finalist of Moore Inventor Fellow, a 2021 iCANX Young Scientist Award, 2021 Finalist of Rising Stars of Light, 2020 SPIE Rising Researcher, a 2020 Baylor Outstanding Professor Award, a 2019 DARPA Director’s Fellowship, a 2019 IEEE OGC Young Scientist Award, a 2018 NSF CAREER Award, a 2017 DARPA Young Faculty Award, a 2018 OSA Ambassador, and a 2017 APS Robert S. Hyer Award.
He has strong passion in promoting optical sciences and physics to students and the general public, and in serving for the professional communities. He organized more than 25 technical sessions in nanophotonics/metasurfaces in international conferences (Optica, APS, META, PQE, MRS, IEEE) and serves as Lead Symposium Organizer for plasmonic/metasurface symposiums at 2019-2026 MRS Fall Meeting and 2020-2026 MRS Spring Meeting (organized > 2300 presentations). He is 2025 Vice Chair for APS Far West Section. He is a Fellow of Optica and SPIE.
Professor Howard Lee will be residing at Clare Hall, accompanied by his wife, Emily Hsu (whose areas of interest and expertise include Music Therapy, Marketing, and Sociology), and their children, Jadon Lee and Briella Lee.
Select publications
- M. G. Suh∗, D. Dang∗, M. Gao∗, Y. Jin, B. J. Park, B. Hu, W. J.M. Kort-Kamp, H. W. Lee, “Hyperspectral Dual-Comb Compressive Imaging for Minimally-Invasive Video-Rate Endomicroscopy”, Nature: Light Science & Application (accepted) (https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04157) (2026).
- S. Gurung, S. Bej, Q. Dang, A. Sahoo, A. Anopchenko, Z. Yi, A. Sokolov, A. Marini, H. W. Lee, “Control of Ultrafast Hot Electron Dynamics in Epsilon-Near-Zero Conductive Oxide Thin Films”, Science Advances 11, 8850 (2025).
- A. Palmar, J. Yang, Y. Jin, S. Love, L. Zhang, H. W. Lee, “Meta”-optical fibers: Prospectives and Outlooks,” ACS Photonics, 12, 5827-5848 (2025).
- J. Yang, K. Minn, A. Anopchenko, S. Gurung, H. W. Lee, “Excitation of Epsilon‐Near‐Zero Mode in Optical Fiber”, Laser & Photonics Reviews 17, 2200539 (2023).
- J. Yang, S. Gurung, S. Bej, P. Ni, H. W. Lee, “Active Optical Metasurfaces: A Comprehensive Review on Physics, Mechanisms, and Prospective Applications,” Reports on Progress in Physics 85, 036101 (2022).
- K. Minn, A. Anopchenko, C. Chang, J. Kim, Y. J. Lu, S. Gwo, H. W. Lee, “Enhanced Spontaneous Emission of Monolayer MoS2 on Epitaxially Grown Titanium Nitride Epsilon-Near-Zero Thin Films.” Nano Letter 21, 4928 (2021).
- S. Gurung, A. Anopchenko, S. Bej, J. Joyner, J. Myers, J. Frantz, H. W. Lee, “Atomic layer engineering of epsilon near zero ultrathin films with controllable zero index field enhancement,” Advanced Materials Interfaces 20000844 (2020).
- Y. W. Huang*, H. W. Lee*, R. Sokhoyan, R. Pala, K. Thyagarajan, S. Han, D. P. Tsai, and H. A. Atwater, “Gate-tunable conducting oxide metasurfaces,” Nano Lett. 16, 5319-5325 (2016).
Select awards
- Optica Fellow and Ambassador
- SPIE Fellow
- Moore Experimental Physics Investigator
- Humboldt Fellow for Experienced Researcher
Further links
https://sites.google.com/uci.edu/lee-lab/home
https://www.physics.uci.edu/node/13976
