Kunyan Zhang
Assistant Professor, Simons Empire Faculty Fellow
Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
Biography
Kunyan Zhang’s research focuses on understanding how light interacts with matter and how energy and charge evolve on ultrafast timescales.
Zhang develops and applies advanced optical spectroscopy and microscopy techniques to investigate nonlinear optical phenomena and light-matter interactions in two-dimensional materials, quantum materials, and biological systems. By probing these dynamics across femtosecond to longer timescales and multiple length scales, her work seeks to establish fundamental connections between microscopic behavior and macroscopic material and biological functions.
Her research combines experimental spectroscopy with data-driven approaches to reveal mechanisms that are difficult to access using conventional characterization techniques, with the goal of guiding the development of materials and devices for sustainable energy, high-precision sensing, and quantum technologies.
Education
- PhD, The Pennsylvania State University, 2022
Research Interests
- Ultrafast nonlinear optical spectroscopy
- Light–matter interactions
- Low-dimensional materials
- Energy transfer dynamics