Alan Aspuru-Guzik

Alán Aspuru-Guzik is currently Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, where he started his independent career in 2006 and was promoted to Full Professor in 2013. Alán received his B.Sc. from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1999. He obtained a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004, where he also was a postdoctoral scholar from 2005-2006.

Aspuru-Guzik carries out research at the interfaces of quantum information and chemistry and machine learning and chemistry. He pioneered the development of algorithms and experimental implementations of quantum computers and dedicated quantum simulators for chemical systems. He has studied the role of quantum coherence in excitonic energy transfer in photosynthetic complexes. He has accelerated discovery by means of computation for organic semiconductors, organic photovoltaics, organic batteries and organic light-emitting diodes. He has worked on molecular representations and generative models for the machine learning of molecular properties. He is currently interested in automation and “self-driving” chemical laboratories.

Amongst other recognitions, Aspuru-Guzik has been the recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the Sloan Research Fellowship, and was selected as a Top Innovator under 35 by the MIT Technology Review. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and in 2013 he received the Early Career Award in Theoretical Chemistry from the American Chemical Society

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