Diego Olaya Email & Phone Number

Lafayette, Co, Us

Boulder, Colorado, United States

- Refactoring numerical beam propagation code in Python to improve usability and maintainability.

Colorado

USSF Grassroots Referee. As part of this certification, I am qualified to work on youth games at a wide variety of levels, from recreational to ECNL, as well as amateur adult matches. Working as a referee has taught me conflict management skills as well as emotional and professional resilience in the face of verbal abuse from coaches and spectators.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

Assigned to work in TC 2800.- Performed prior art search on applications for a primary examiner.- Drafted first action on the merits under the supervision of a primary examiner.- Drafted a restriction under the supervision of a primary examiner.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

I worked in the Ye group on the mid-IR frequency comb breathalyzer project, which aims to use cavity-enhanced frequency comb spectroscopy (CE-DFCS) in the mid-IR region to diagnose diseases by using machine learning to detect patterns in the absorption spectra of exhaled breath samples. Building on work published in the Journal of Breath Research in 2023, we improved the setup to include an additional laser and greater spectral coverage in anticipation of collaborations with doctors to study other diseases.- Wrote instrument control code to integrate linear translation stage with computerized data acquisition for high-resolution spectrograms.- Basic servo loop tuning.- Performed alignment of free-space beams and assisted in alignment of a high-finesse optical cavity.- Simulated cavity absorption of various molecules using HITRAN database values.

Pasadena, California, United States

Teaching assistant for Physics 7, the second part of the sophomore laboratory sequence at Caltech. I am in charge of running personal recitation sessions with the students, evaluating their readiness to conduct experiments in the lab, evaluating their performance during the lab section, and grading their analyses and notebooks after they conduct the experiments.

Pasadena, California, United States

Worked on a project investigating the cavity dynamics of an optical parametric oscillator (OPO), where a free space cavity is combined with nonlinearity coming from a periodically poled thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) waveguide. The current waveguide has demonstrated, through optical parametric amplification (OPA), 100 dB/cm gain over a 600 nm bandwidth around 2 µm, a record gain-bandwidth on-chip. These results suggest that the OPO cavity could demonstrate record-low threshold power and ultra-broadband gain. The group also hopes to dispersion-engineer a TFLN waveguide on sapphire to allow for the generation of light up to five microns. My work involved:- Writing an instrument control library in Python to control optical spectrum analyzers to automate data collection.- Characterizing the OPO and attempting to understand the results using simulations.

Pasadena, Ca

I gave campus tours and participate in panel discussions to answer prospective applicants' questions about the institute and my own experiences as a student. I also assisted with programming put on by the Undergraduate Admissions Office as needed. I have also provided input on admissions counselor applicants as part of the job interview process.

Pasadena, California, United States

Teaching Assistant for Ph 6 (Physics Laboratory), a sophomore-level class. Due to COVID-19, the course was a virtual lab primarily focused on analyzing data from selected experiments. I ran one-on-one recitations, held office hours, and graded student lab reports.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

My research focused on second harmonic generation (SHG) from ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal samples. I helped automate the experiment by writing LabVIEW code to control a Newport motion controller and took data measuring the SHG signal from our samples at various temperatures. I was also involved in lab safety and compliance efforts.As part of the REU program requirements, I gave a presentation to the other members of the cohort and some physics faculty and prepared a report on my work.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

I performed code efficiency testing in AngularJS for a code refactor of spdcalc.org, an online calculation aid for non-linear optical calculations in research with a focus on spontaneous parametric downconversion.

Boulder, Co

I researched the resistance of thin metal films used by the Faint Photonics Group in the manufacturing of single photon detectors. I also wrote code for a GUI that would simplify the process of taking IV curves of samples.

Master Of Science - Ms, Physics

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Physics

Activities and Societies: Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow; Caltech Latino Association of Students in Engineering and Sciences (2018 - 2022)

High School