About
Nina Vaidya is a Lecturer and Assistant Professor in Astronautics and Spacecraft Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton
The Vaidya Research Group specializes in the area of optics and material design in applications including nano-photonics and metamaterials, nano-fabrication, energy materials, 3D printing of functional components, and high-specific power space-based systems.
Research
Research groups
Current research
Nina works on concepts to break optics and optoelectronic limits and new fabrication techniques to implement them, which have the potential to change the way we conceptualize, fabricate, and deploy engineering systems.
Her innovations in 3D printing to create nanometer-smooth optical devices and gradient index immersion optical concentrators are published as first author Nature Springer papers; and her work at Caltech on creating the space based solar power (SBSP) prototypes was featured in a BBC world service interview. This SBSP project reached an important milestone of a space launch with SpaceX Transporter 6 and received successful data from space.
Publications
Biography
Dr. Nina Vaidya undertook her undergraduate study in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, England, UK and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, CA, USA. Nina works on advanced optical and material design and fabrication techniques. Her innovation and work on graded index immersion optics and 3D printing to create high-quality nanometer-smooth optical devices is published as a first author Nature papers https://news.stanford.edu/2022/06/27/new-optical-device-help-solar-arrays-focus-light-even-clouds/ and her work at Caltech on the space based solar power was featured in a BBC world service interview, created functional space prototypes https://www.spacesolar.caltech.edu/, and the demo was recently successfully launched into space https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-to-launch-space-solar-power-technology-demo-into-orbit-in-january.
Before her Ph.D., Nina worked as a strategy consultant for international engineering companies & original equipment manufacturers in Europe and Asia. Nina was a Stanford DARE (Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence) scholarship recipient and involved in various inclusion and outreach activities such as an IEEE industry liaison, a WIE (Women In Engineering) officer, and a fundraising coordinator for the EWB (Engineers Without Borders).