Prineha Narang

Dr. Prineha Narang is a Professor and Howard Reiss Chair in Physical Sciences at UCLA where she leads an interdisciplinary group across physics, chemistry, and engineering. Prior to moving to UCLA, she was an Assistant Professor of Computational Materials Science at Harvard University. Before starting on the Harvard faculty, Dr. Narang was an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE), and worked as a research scholar in condensed matter theory in the Department of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received an M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) supported by a Resnick Fellowship from the Resnick Sustainability Institute and an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Narang was recently named a U.S. Science Envoy by the State Department to forge connections and identify opportunities for sustained international cooperation in areas of science and engineering. 

Dr. Narang’s work has been recognized by many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Natural Sciences from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the American Physical Society’s Maria Goeppert Mayer Award in 2023, the 2022 Materials Research Society’s Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award and Office of Naval Research YIP, Mildred Dresselhaus Prize, Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, a Max Planck Sabbatical Award from the Max Planck Society, and the IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in Computational Physics all in 2021, an NSF CAREER Award and Department of Energy INCITE Award in 2020, being named a Moore Inventor Fellow by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for pioneering innovations in quantum sensing in marine environments, CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, a Top Innovator by MIT Tech Review (MIT TR35), and a leading young scientist by the World Economic Forum in 2018. In 2017, she was named by Forbes Magazine on their “30under30” list for her work in atom-by-atom engineering, that is, designing materials at the smallest scale, using single atoms.

Dr. Narang holds leadership roles in a Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Frontier Research Center ‘Photonics at Thermodynamic Limits’, and DOE NQI Quantum Science Center, among others. Her continued service to the community includes Chairing the Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring Meeting (2022) and the MRS-Kavli Foundation Future of Materials Workshop: Computational Materials Science (2021), as an Associate Editor at ACS Nano, organizing APS, Optica (OSA), and SPIE symposia, and most recently a leadership role in APS’ Division of Materials Physics. 

Further, Dr. Narang has advised IBM, Applied Materials, and Northrop Grumman Corporation over the last years on building and expanding their advanced materials and quantum technology programs. Outside of science, she is an avid Ironman-triathlon racer and marathon runner. Time spent outdoors is important to her – here’s a Faculty Spotlight highlighting how she spends time outside the lab and an article by the Moore Foundation on “Beyond the Lab“.

Prineha Narang is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group^®.