Rocio Camacho Morales

• Associate Investigator
• University of Melbourne
• rocio.camacho@uom.edu.au
• @Rocio_Cm06

Research Interests

• Nanophotonics
• Metasurfaces
• Nonlinear Optics

Education

• BSc , National Autonomous University of Mexico
• MSc, Ensenada Centre for Scientific Research and Higher Education
• PhD, The Australian National University

Achievements & Awards

• J G Russell Award, Australian Academy of Science (2026)
• Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Australian Research Council (2025)
• Geoff Opat Early Career Researcher Prize, Australian and New Zealand Optical Society (2024)
• Neville Fletcher Early Career Researcher Award, Research School of Physics – ANU (2023)
• Warsash Science Communication Prize in Optics, Australian and New Zealand Optical Society (2022)
• Industry Award, ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (2022)

Themes

• Generate, Manipulate

Dr Rocio Camacho Morales is an experimental physicist and ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow in the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne. Her research in nonlinear nanophotonics and optical metasurfaces focuses on controlling light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. She develops advanced photonic platforms for frequency conversion, tuneable light control and compact optical imaging, including metasurface technologies for infrared-to-visible upconversion imaging. She is now building a research program in which metasurfaces connect nanophotonics, imaging and sensing, and the life sciences.

Dr Camacho Morales received her BSc in Physics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, her MSc in Optics from the Ensenada Centre for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Mexico, and her PhD in Physics from The Australian National University (ANU). She then joined the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) at the ANU node as a Postdoctoral Fellow and is now an Associate Investigator in the Centre. Alongside her research, she contributes to Optica, SPIE and the Australian and New Zealand Optical Society, mentors and supervises emerging scientists, and is active in science communication and outreach.