Dr. Elena Vasquez

Dr. Elena Vasquez was born in Barcelona and completed her undergraduate and doctoral studies in photonic engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya before moving to Boston for a research position at MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Her work focused on metamaterials — engineered structures with electromagnetic properties not found in nature — and she has spent the years since translating that exotic research into writing that non-specialists can genuinely understand and appreciate. At Discovia, Elena covers metamaterials, photonic crystals, optical computing, and the applications of advanced light-manipulation technologies in everything from medical imaging to telecommunications to solar energy harvesting. She is based in Boston and has a particular gift for explaining why the most counterintuitive discoveries in physics tend to become the most transformative technologies.