Dr. Punnag Padhy is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. His research interests are in understanding the fundamentals of field–matter interactions in micro- and nanoscale systems and exploiting them to develop integrated tools for controlling energy, information, and biomolecular sample processing. Working in the lab of Jennifer A. Dionne, Dr. Padhy studies nonlinear photothermal responses of metasurfaces and deploys them as microheater arrays for on-chip solid-phase high-throughput DNA synthesis. The potential of this work has been recognized by the Stanford High Impact Technology (HIT) fund. Prior to this, during his doctoral research in the lab of Lambertus Hesselink, Dr. Padhy developed a dielectrophoretic approach to controllably manipulate individual microparticles into and out of microdroplets by overcoming interfacial tension forces, enabling the droplet microfluidic implementation of solid-phase DNA synthesis. He also has experience working with plasmonic sensors and near-field optical traps, and serves as a reviewer for multiple high-impact journals in photonics, nanotechnology, and bioengineering.