Rate My Professor Kishan Dholakia

Professor Kishan Dholakia is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Director of the Centre of Light for Life at the University of Adelaide, where he has served as Professor since 2020. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Atomic and Laser Physics from Imperial College London in 1993. Previously, Dholakia was Professor of Physics at the University of St Andrews from 2003, founding the Centre of Biophotonics there, and holds ongoing honorary appointments as Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras since 2017, Affiliate Professor at Yonsei University since 2019, Honorary Adjunct Professor at the University of Arizona since 2005, and Visiting Professor at Chiba University from 2012 to 2022. He founded the Centre of Light for Life at the University of Adelaide in 2023 and was instrumental in forming the James Mackenzie Institute for Early Diagnosis in 2019. Dholakia has received prestigious awards including the SPIE Dennis Gabor Award in 2018, Institute of Physics Thomas Young Medal and Prize in 2017, Optica R. W. Wood Prize in 2016, Royal Society London Wolfson Merit Award from 2008 to 2013, and European Optics Prize in 2003 for optical micromanipulation. He is a Fellow of SPIE (2009), Optica (2008), Royal Society of Edinburgh (2007), and Institute of Physics (2004), and was named South Australia's Scientist of the Year in 2025. Leadership roles include Elected SPIE Director for 2025-2027, Chair of Optica Fellows Committee in 2013, and international committee member for the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Dholakia's research specializations encompass biophotonics, biomedical engineering, optical physics, photonics, optical micromanipulation, structured light fields, light-sheet microscopy, and advanced biomedical imaging techniques. Key publications include 'Microfluidic sorting in an optical lattice' (Nature, 2003), 'Controlled rotation of optically trapped microscopic particles' (Science, 2001), 'Simultaneous micromanipulation in multiple planes using a self-reconstructing light beam' (Nature, 2002), 'Light-sheet microscopy using an Airy beam' (Nature Methods, 2014), and 'A material change for ultra-high precision force sensing' (Light: Science & Applications, 2024). His contributions have advanced optical trapping, particle manipulation, cell transfection, and label-free imaging of biological samples, earning over 40,000 citations on Google Scholar and significant influence in biophotonics and quantum sensing fields. He serves as Invited Associate Editor for ACS Photonics since 2020 and has secured major grants such as ARC Laureate Fellowship (2022-2027) and Novo Nordisk Foundation Distinguished Innovator (2026-2028).