TEAM
Research Team
Past and present members of the Ab Initio Simulations Lab
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
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.
Outside of work, Dr. Banerjee is an avid scuba diver and maintains a YouTube channel.
Lab Members
CURRENT GRADUATE STUDENTS
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
Zidi Yang
Ph.D. Student in Materials Science and Engineering
Background: B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), China
Kartikey Srivastava
Ph.D. Student in Materials Science and Engineering
Background: B.E. in Mechanical Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, India
CURRENT UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Maanasi Dhiraj Narayan
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Samueli Research Scholar, 2024
CURRENT & RECENT VISITORS
Russell Kislik
High school student intern, Science Academy STEM Magnet, North Hollywood, CA
Summer 2024
Shivam Sharma
Graduate Student, Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota
Boaz Yoo
High school student intern, Science Academy STEM Magnet, North Hollywood, CA
Summer 2024
Alysa Phattanaphibul
Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Philip Chen
High school student intern, Walnut High School, CA
Summer 2023
Claire Zhang
Undergraduate intern, Department of Mathematics, UCLA
Summer 2022
LAB ALUMNI
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.
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.
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
Hugo Onghai
B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
IBM Undergraduate Research Program Scholar
Graduated, 2025; Currently employed at Kepler Computing after graduate studies at Cornell Tech.
Stephanie Taylor
M.S. 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
Graduated, 2025
Jennie Ren
B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Samueli Research Scholar, 2023
Project: Transport in helical nanostructures
Graduated, 2026; Currently graduate student at Stanford.