Yoav Lahini is a physicist and Pappalardo postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and  a visiting scholar at Harvard University. He is currently working on nonlinear and quantum photonics, quantum information and soft-matter physics.

Yoav’s research interests are: The Anderson localization of light, nonlinear effects in disordered and quasi-periodic systems, quantum walks and quantum many-body dynamics, statistical nonlinear optics, quantum optics in complex media, integrated quantum optics, topological phases of quasicrystals, Soft matter physics.

Before moving to MIT Yoav completed his PhD in experimental physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science working with Prof. Yaron Silberberg. His thesis “Nonlinear and quantum optics of disordered media” researched direct observation and characterization of the interplay between disorder and nonlinearity. This interdisciplinary field, involving concepts from nonlinear science, solid-state physics and ultrafast optics, is very hard to approach theoretically. Yoav developed a new, exciting experimental approach that enables direct investigation of these factors. His experimental setup allows an excellent control of experimental parameters that is practically impossible in other realizations of this problem. His work has already attracted considerable interest among scientists working in solid state physics in nonlinear science and optics.

In addition to the Adams Fellowship and the Pappalardo Postdoctoral Fellowship Yoav has also received the Rothschild Fellowship and the John F. Kennedy Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis.