Viktoriia Babicheva
Associate Professor
Profile
Nanophotonics
Optoelectronics
Electromagnetics
Bio
Viktoriia E. Babicheva is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico. She joined UNM in 2019 after her postdoctoral work in the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Prior to that, she worked in the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University and the Center for Nano-Optics at Georgia State University. She completed several fellowship terms at the government research laboratories associated with the U.S. Department of Defense. She leads a research laboratory focused on nanophotonics, optics, and materials properties. Her group investigates light-matter interactions at the nanoscale, with a focus on designing optical components and metasurfaces to control light waves. The work explores high-index dielectric and metallic nanostructures to achieve strong field confinement, tailored dispersion, and enhanced nonlinear effects. She employs experimental characterization and numerical analysis to develop novel photonic structures with applications in optical communications, sensing, and energy-efficient optoelectronic devices. She has authored over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, over 75 refereed conference papers, two book chapters, and one monograph. Her research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. She served as a Principal Editor (2015–2020) and as an Associate Editor (2021–2025) of MRS Advances. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of Nano Select (Wiley) and the SPIE Journal of Optical Microsystems and on the Editorial Board of Advanced Metamaterials (Springer Nature). She is a Senior Member of IEEE, SPIE, and Optica (formerly OSA). She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in engineering electromagnetics and computational electromagnetics in the Electrical Engineering and Optical Science and Engineering programs, as well as in the Accelerated Online Program in Space Systems Engineering.
