Julijana Cvjetinovic is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Photonic Science and Engineering at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.
She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Skoltech in 2023, where her dissertation explored the optical and mechanical behavior of hierarchically structured biosilica. Prior to her doctoral studies, she obtained her M.Sc. in Physics from NUST MISiS (Moscow) and her B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Novi Sad (Serbia).
Dr. Cvjetinovic’s research bridges biophotonics, biomimetics, and nanomaterials, with a particular focus on how structured biological systems manipulate light and mechanical energy. A central model system in her work is diatoms — unicellular algae with highly ordered silica shells (frustules) exhibiting complex hierarchical architectures. These natural microstructures provide a platform for investigating light manipulation in biological photonic systems, resonance phenomena and vibrational eigenmodes, optical responses of periodic and quasi-periodic architectures, nanomechanical properties of biosilica, advanced photoacoustic and fluorescence-based imaging techniques, and interactions between nanoparticles and living microalgae.
Her current research directions extend from fundamental studies of natural photonic architectures to their biomimetic translation into engineered systems. This includes:
- investigation of photoinduced dissolution of iron oxide nanoparticles in diatom cultures and its impact on cellular viability, lipid accumulation, and photosynthetic efficiency;
- optical monitoring and modeling of microstructured biosilica under varying environmental conditions;
- laser tweezers manipulation of intracellular components;
- development of bioinspired photonic and sensing platforms;
- biomimetic scaling of biologically derived microarchitectures into engineered structures operating in the terahertz (THz) spectral range for the investigation of wave propagation phenomena in hierarchically designed photonic systems.
She is Principal Investigator of a Russian Science Foundation project studying photoinduced dissolution of iron oxide nanoparticles and its impact on the viability, lipid accumulation, and photosynthetic activity of diatom algae.
Dr. Cvjetinovic teaches graduate-level courses, including Applied Physics in Biomimetic Structures, and serves as co-instructor for Physics of Colloids and Interfaces and Biomedical Applications of Photonics. She supervises Master’s and PhD students and serves as program coordinator for the Photonics and Quantum Materials master’s and PhD programs.
She has authored and co-authored publications in journals such as Optica, Applied Physics Letters, Scientific Reports, Photoacoustics, and Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and has presented her work internationally, including at SPIE Photonics West, ICKEM, Global Young Scientists Summit (Singapore), and the IV Eurasian Women’s Forum.
Her long-term vision is to translate principles of natural photonic systems into scalable bioinspired technologies.
