Sergio Carbajo is an assistant professor at the UCLA Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) and the UCLA Physics & Astronomy departments and visiting professor at Stanford University’s Photon Science Division at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. As director of the cooperative, his team seeks to help solve major life and energy challenges by examining the cooperative interaction between photons and matter, and its methodologies are informed by a critically interdisciplinary approach to the science and applications of light by design. He is an active faculty member of the California NanoSystems Institute and the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering. Sergio is also the Director of Diversity at the UCLA ECE department and the founder and director of the Queered Science and Technology Center (QSTC) at UCLA. He is laying a framework to address overarching issues of diversity and critical representation in STEM through queer, radical feminist, and black analyses of the impact of science & technology in society. Sergio is a musician and composer, creative writer, and an undeterred bike commuter.