CV

For full CV (updated in June 2022) see CV_PaulHanakata

Current Position

• Postdoctoral Fellow working with David R. Nelson, Physics Department Harvard University

Research Interests

Hard and Soft Condensed Matter Physics

• Programmable metmaterials
• Nanomachines
• 2D materials beyond graphene
• Nonlinear mechanics in thermalized 2D membrane
• Kirigami and mechanical metamaterials

Machine Learning

• Generative Model for Inverse Design
• Machine learning for phase transition and bifurcation problem
• Evolutionary Search

Education

Ph.D., Physics (2019), Boston University, USA

• Dissertation: Studies of 2D Materials Beyond Graphene: From First-Principles to Machine Learning Approaches
• First advisor: David K. Campbell
• Second advisor: Harold S. Park

B.A. in Physics (with high honors) and Mathematics (2014), Wesleyan University, USA

• Thesis: Cooperative Dynamics in Supported Polymer Films
• Advisor: Francis W. Starr

Awards

• Gertrude and Maurice Goldhaber Prize in recognition of “outstanding achievement by a first-year graduate student”, Department of Physics, Boston University (2015).
• Leroy Apker Award Finalist, The highest prize oered in the United States for an undergraduate thesis in physics, American Physical Society (2014).
• Bertman Prize Wesleyan Physics Department’s highest recognition of an undergraduate student majoring in physics, Wesleyan University (2014).
• Phi Beta Kappa Wesleyan University (2014)
• Johnston Prize, Karl Van Dyke Prize Wesleyan University (2010, 2012)
• Bronze Medal International Physics Olympiad (2009)
• Silver Mdeal Asian Physics Olympiad (2009)

Grants

• Hariri Incubation Grant, Boston University (2018-2019)
• Materials Science and Engineering Innovation Grant, Boston University (2016)

Fellowships/Scholarships

• Hariri Graduate Fellow, “awarded to outstanding PhD students who pursue computational and data-driven research at Boston University” , Boston University (2018-2019).
• Materials Science and Engineering Innovation Grant, Boston University (2016)
• Freeman Scholarship, Wesleyan University (2010-2014).

Services

Referee for Nature Computational Materials, Physical Review Letters, PNAS, ACS Nano, Extreme Mechanics Letters, Physical Review B, Advanced Nanoscales, Nature Scientific Reports, and The Journal of Chemical Physics.