I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering at the
University of South Carolina. I am advised by
Dr. Jianjun Hu, and I work as a Graduate Research Assistant in the
Machine Learning and Evolution Laboratory
under his supervision. My Ph.D. research focuses on using
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to solve
problems from the materials science domain, leveraging concepts
from core ML areas, such as natural language processing (NLP) and
computer vision (CV).
My aim is to solve real-world scientific challenges, particularly
core and unsolved problems, through the integration of advanced
AI/ML techniques with fundamental scientific principles. I aspire
to develop intelligent computational systems that can assist
scientists in making new discoveries, unveiling hidden patterns in
complex data, and advancing our understanding of the physical
world.
As a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the
University of South Carolina, I conduct research at the intersection of AI/ML and materials
science. My work focuses on developing advanced machine learning
methods to accelerate the discovery and design of novel
materials. I specialize in graph neural networks (GNNs), large
language models (LLMs), foundation models, and diffusion models
for solving core materials informatics challenges such as
crystal structure prediction (CSP), materials property prediction, and generative modeling of
materials.
My research particularly emphasizes AI-driven approaches for
crystal structure prediction, a long-standing challenge in
materials science similar to the protein structure prediction
problem. I draw inspiration from breakthroughs such as
AlphaFold2
(won 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) and aim to extend similar
paradigms to crystalline systems.
By integrating scientific domain knowledge with state-of-the-art
AI models, I seek to enable automated materials discovery and
accelerate innovation in materials design.
My current research focuses on developing an E(3)-equivariant
diffusion model for conditional generation of 3D crystal
polyhedra (building blocks of crystals), given their chemical
compositions (e.g., NaCl, SrTiO3,
Cu4FeGe2S7). Successful
prediction of the polyhedra of a crystal can lead to accurate
prediction of the full crystal structure and provide an
efficient solution to the CSP problem. I am inspired by
successful diffusion model-based approaches in similar problems,
such as molecular and protein structure prediction.