Professor Philippe Sautet

French Academy of Sciences Member

Professor Sautet received his Ph.D. in 1989, in Paris-Orsay Unversity in France, and did his Habilitation to direct research in Lyon 1 University. He was a visiting scientist in UC Berkeley/LBL in 1991-1992. Then, he was a Director of research, Director of the Laboratoire de Chimie, Director of the Institut de Chimie de Lyon, and Exceptional class director of research at CNSR, ENS Lyon, France. Since 2016, he is a Professor in UCLA and CNSI. Sautet is a world-renowned scholar and a recipient of many awards, including the Membership in the French Academy of Sciences, Chevalier de l'ordre des palmes academiques, Pierre Sue Grand Prize of the French Chemical Society, and the Silver Medal of CNRS. Sautet's research interests are in the area of theoretical surface chemistry and heterogeneous and electro-catalysis.

Team

Supriti Dutta

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Postdoc Fellow

Supriti recieved her Ph.D. from JNCASR, Banglore and her research was focused on Photo-Electrocatalytic activity and selectivity in renewable energy conversion processes. Currently, she works on the computational high throughput screening of pseudocapacitive materials and thermal catalysis for the decomposition of toxic nerve agent sarin.

Kaustubh Sawant

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Postdoc Fellow

Dr. Kaustubh Sawant earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, where he focused on computational modeling of thin-film oxides for electrochemical and thermal catalytic applications. He is currently advancing research on amorphous oxides in collaboration with BASF while also developing new frameworks and open-source tools for graph-based grand-canonical basin hopping.

Dongxiao Chen

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Postdoc Fellow

Dongxiao completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Fudan University, Shanghai. His current research is related to utilizing machine learning techniques for atomic simulation in theoretical heterogeneous catalysis. Specifically, he is investigating the structure of platinum nanoparticle under hydrogen conditions.

Qianyu Liu

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Postdoc Fellow

Qianyu completed her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Fudan University, Shanghai. Her current research in the group is related to utilizing machine learning techniques for atomic simulation in heterogeneous catalysis. Specifically, she is investigating the interfacial structure of Au/TiO2 under different reaction conditions.

David Jiang

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PhD Student

David graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle having done research in nanocrystal-driven photothermal conversion with Professor Vincent Holmberg. His current computational research focuses include machine learning (ML) assisted exploration of catalyst restructuring and prediction of novel materials for capture and decontamination of contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide and of chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas.

Dongfang Cheng

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PhD Student

Dongfang’s current work focuses on computational modeling of electrochemical systems for energy conversions.

Xihan Liu

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PhD Student

Xihan graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering in 2021 and joined Professor Sautet’s group in the same year. He completed his master’s thesis in 2023 from UCLA’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He studies hydride formation and decomposition processes in Pd/Au systems and models the ethanol oxidation reaction catalyzed by Pt cluster electrocatalysts.

Sree Harsha Bhimineni

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PhD Student

Harsha received his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Warangal in 2022. Currently, he works on the computational high throughput screening of pseudocapacitive materials.

Robert Kowalski

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PhD Student

Robert received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of California, Davis in 2022. His undergraduate work was on creating machine-learned potentials for metal clusters inside zeolites under Dr. Ambarish Kulkarni. His current work focuses on using different electrocatalysis and CO₂ capture agents to undergo reactive carbon capture.

Walaa Alhawaj

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PhD Student

Walaa received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Colorado, Boulder. Her current work focuses on the investigation of different thermocatalytic processes in the field of fuel production.

Yani Guan

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PhD Student

Yani focuses on electrochemical amination, from Levulinic Acid to Pyrrolidone.

Pepper Yang

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PhD Student

Pepper is born and raised in Shandong, China. Her research centers on the computational simulation of catalytic reactions on dynamic catalysts, with a particular focus on converting greenhouse gases into value-added chemicals and hydrogen storage solutions.

Wenjia Xu

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PhD Student

Wenjia currently focuses on predicting the stable atomic configurations of amorphous metal sulfides and studying their structural and electronic changes during lithiation.

Jasmine Dinari

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PhD Student

Jasmine received her B.S. in Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2023. Her undergraduate work was largely experimental and focused on analyzing plasma-based degradation of PFAS in water, under the supervision of Dr. Mohan Sankaran in collaboration with Dr. Xiao Su in the ChBE department. She currently focuses on modeling plasma assisted atomic layer etching, in collaboration with Dr. Jane Chang.

Ali Almofleh

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PhD Student

Ali earned his bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Manchester, UK, in 2021. Immediately after graduation, he joined the Research and Development Department at Aramco Oil and Gas, where he worked as an engineering researcher for three years. Currently, he focuses on leveraging computational chemistry and machine learning to develop catalysts for methane oxidation, with the goal of selectively producing methanol.

Tianyi (Sean) Zhang

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PhD Student

Tianyi earned his B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from Carleton College. His research interests lie at the intersection of computational chemistry and machine learning, with a focus on addressing challenges in environmental and energy-related systems.

George Isaac Paul

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MS Student

George received his bachelors degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, Riverside in 2023. He worked at Thermo Fischer for a year before joining the group in 2024. He is currently exploring various project possibilities.

Clifton Thompson

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Undergraduate Student

Clifton currently researches on thermodynamically favorable pathways for H₂S decomposition.

Alumni

Addis Fuhr

Staff Scientist

Oak Ridge National Lab

David (Jin Soo) Lim

Postdoc Fellow

UCLA

Pallavi Bothra

Postdoc Fellow

UCLA

Geng Sun

Postdoc Fellow

UCLA

Yichen Li

PhD Student

UCLA

Zahra Almisbaa

PhD Student

UCLA

Celine Tesvara

PhD Student

UCLA

Michael Ngan

PhD Student

UCLA

Simran Kumari

PhD Student

UCLA

Yantao Xia

PhD Student

UCLA

Vaidish Sumaria

PhD Student

UCLA

George Yan

PhD Student

UCLA

Ziyang Wei

PhD Student

UCLA

Kerry Chen

Undergraduate Student

UCLA

Andrew Todt

Undergraduate Student

UCLA

Nicole Chiang

Undergraduate Student

UCLA

Huy Nguyen

Undergraduate Student

UCLA