ESE PhD Job Market

Welcome to the ESE PhD Job Market page, which represents upcoming graduates on the job market for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Rex Ndubuisi Ali

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Network Engineer/Network Specialist (Full time)
• Email: rex.ndubuisi@gmail.com; alirex@seas.upenn.edu Expertise/research area:
• Advisor(s): Professor Saswati Sarkar
• Expected graduation date: December 2025

Adam Alfieri

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Postdoctoral research position or R&D engineering in field of photovoltaics/ optoelectronics
• Email: alfieri@seas.upenn.edu
• Expertise/research area: thin film photovoltaics, optoelectronics, materials science
• Advisor(s): Professor Deep Jariwala
• Expected graduation date: December 2025

Nikolaos Bousias

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Postdoctoral Research Fellow or Research Engineering Position
• Email: nbousias@seas.upenn.edu, nboussias@gmail.com
• Research area: Equivariant MARL, Safety in Deep Policies, Learning for Distributed Control
• Advisor: Professor George Pappas
• Expected graduation: February 2026

Xilin Feng

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Research scientist or engineer in photonics
• Email: xlfeng@seas.upenn.edu
• Expertise/research area: Photonics
• Advisor(s): Professor Liang Feng
• Expected graduation date: May 2026 

Chloe Leblanc

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Industry, R&D process engineering
• Email: chloeleb@seas.upenn.edu
• Expertise/research area: nanofabrication, semiconductor devices, 2D materials, ferroelectrics
• Advisor(s): Professor Deep Jariwala
• Expected graduation date: March 2026

Farhad Nawaz

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Full time position in Industry
• Email: farhadn@seas.upenn.edu, Portfolio webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/farhad-nawaz
• Expertise/research area: Learning for planning and control, Robot Manipulation, Autonomous Vehicles
• Advisor(s): Professor Nikolai Matni and Professor Nadia Figueroa
• Expected graduation date: May 2026 

Liangzu Peng

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Industrial or Academic Positions
• Email: lpenn@seas.upenn.edu
• Expertise/research area: Machine Learning, Optimization
• Advisor(s): Professor Rene Vidal
• Expected graduation date: May 2026

Elizabeth Schell

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Industry R&D or national lab, full-time
• Email: evschell@seas.upenn.edu
• Expertise/research area: System design using novel device technologies (biodegradable/flexible/stretchable), agricultural monitoring
• Advisor(s): Professor Mark Allen
• Expected graduation date: May 2026

Nandan Tumu

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Postdoc or Research Scientist roles
• Email: nandant@upenn.edu
• Expertise/Research Area: Conformal Prediction, Physics Constrained Learning for Control, Multi-agent Systems
• Advisor(s): Professor Rahul Mangharam
• Expected Graduation Date: May 2026

Xuan Wang

Graduate Research Assistant

• Seeking: Electrical/System/Hardware Engineer positions
• Email: wxuan@seas.upenn.edu
• Expertise/research area: Power magnetics design and integration; high-frequency power converters
• Advisor(s): Professor Mark Allen
• Expected graduation date: 2025-2026