Rodrigo Câmara won first place Student Paper Competition at the MetaMaterials - International Congress on Artificial Materials of Novel Wave Phenomena, in Greece, this September.

Rodrigo is conducting the Physics Doctoral Program at Instituto Superior Técnico, under the supervision of Mário Silveirinha (IT - IST), Andrea Alù, and Tatiana Rappoport (IT - University of Minho), who have vast and important contributions in the field of topological materials.

The 2016 Nobel Prize for Physics recognized the relevance of global geometric structures - topology - in capturing exotic physical phenomena; for example, backscattering-free transmission of photons often occurs at the interface between topologically nontrivial materials. Such optical channels could enhance the transmission efficiency in light-based technologies that are gaining prominence due to their advantages over traditional electronic devices.

His Ph.D. research aims to characterize the topology of several classical and quantum optical systems and understand their link to physical effects that may be useful in driving technological advancements.

The Ph.D. project runs under the Simons Collaboration in Mathematics and the Physical Sciences: Extreme Wave Phenomena Based on Symmetries, funded by the Simons Foundation based in New York City.