PI Dr. Amartya Banerjee
Dr. Amartya Banerjee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA, and leads the Ab Initio Simulations Laboratory. His research interests include first principles calculations, simulations of energy, quantum and biological materials, mechanics of materials and structures, applications of symmetry principles, multi-scale methods, numerical analysis and scientific computation.
Dr. Banerjee obtained his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics from the University of Minnesota, working with Professors Richard James and Ryan Elliott. He also holds M.S. degrees in Mathematics, and Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics from the University of Minnesota. He received his undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. Prior to joining UCLA, he held postdoctoral appointments at the Computational Research Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (working with Prof. Lin Lin and Dr. Chao Yang), and at the University of Minnesota.
In addition to his appointment in Materials Science & Engineering, Dr. Banerjee is also currently affiliated with the California NanoSystems Institute and the Centre for Quantum Science and Engineering at UCLA.
A detailed version of Dr. Banerjee's CV can be found here.
A link to his Google Scholar page is here.
Outside of work, Dr. Banerjee is an avid scuba diver and maintains a YouTube channel.
Lab Members:
Current Graduate Students:
Stephanie Taylor -- Ph.D. Student in Materials Science and Engineering.
(Jointly advised with Prof. Jaime Marian)
Background: B.S. in Chemistry, UCSB
Projects: Machine learning models for electronic structure prediction, disordered and compositionally complex alloys
Chenhaoyue Wang -- Ph.D. Student in Materials Science and Engineering.
Background: B.Eng. in New Energy Materials and Devices, Soochow University, Taiwan
Projects: Transport phenomena in chiral nanomaterials, emergent low-dimensional materials and heterostructures
Current Undergraduate Students:
Jennie Ren -- Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Hugo Onghai -- Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA (IBM Undergraduate Research Program Scholar)
Alysa Phattanaphibul -- Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Current & Recent Visitors:
Shivam Sharma -- Graduate Student, Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota
Philip Chen -- High school student intern, Walnut High School, CA (Summer 2023)
Claire Zhang -- Undergraduate intern, Department of Mathematics, UCLA (Summer 2022)
Photo Gallery:
Former Lab Members:
Hsuan Ming Yu (Peter) -- Ph.D. Student in Materials Science & Engineering.
Background: B.S. in Physics, UCLA
Thesis: Nanotubes from first principle and data-driven methods: real and re-imagined.
(Graduated, 2024; Currently employed at Apple Inc.).
Shivang Agarwal -- Ph.D. Student in Electrical Engineering.
Background: B.Tech. Honors in Electrical Engineering, Minor in Materials Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, India
Thesis: Design and applications of novel computational methods for the study of quantum properties of emergent nanomaterials and biomolecules
(Graduated, 2024; Currently employed at Sandbox AQ)
Shihan Gao -- M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering
Background: Undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology, Beijing, China.
Project: DFT Study of Intrinsic Defects in Bulk Aluminum.
(Graduated, 2020; Currently employed at Semtech Corp.).