Jianwei Miao

Jianwei (John) Miao
BornNovember 1969
EducationHangzhou University (now Zhejiang University) (BS, 1991)
Chinese Academy of Sciences(MS, 1994)
State University of New York at Stony Brook(PhD, 1999)
Known forCoherent Diffractive Imaging
Atomic Electron Tomography
3D atomic structure of amorphous solids
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Materials science, Microscopy
InstitutionsSLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University (2000 – 2004)
University of California, Los Angeles (2004 – present)
Doctoral advisorDavid Sayre, Janos Kirz
Websitehttps://www.physics.ucla.edu/research/imaging

Jianwei (John) Miao is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. He performed the first experiment on extending crystallography to allow structural determination of non-crystalline specimens in 1999, which has been known as coherent diffractive imaging (CDI), lensless imaging, or computational microscopy. In 2012, Miao applied the CDI method to pioneer atomic electron tomography (AET), enabling the first determination of 3D atomic structures without assuming crystallinity or averaging. In 2025, he published a single-author review article in Nature titled "Computational microscopy with coherent diffractive imaging and ptychography", which encapsulates 25 years of advancements in computational imaging that have fundamentally transformed the field of microscopy. Miao is the father of Jennifer Miao, a Gates Scholar and PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge researching membrane proteins, and of Cathy Miao, a software engineer at the forefront of AI research and development, advancing technologies that support environmental sustainability in the digital economy.