Hi! I am Ruijie (Ray) Zhu
PhD student in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering @ UChicago ( - )
NSF-NRT AI-enabled Molecular Engineering of Materials and Systems (AIMEMS) for Sustainability Trainee ( - )
Polsky I-Corps Fall 2024 cohort (-)
Professional Development Chair @ Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) UChicago Chapter (-Pres.)
Computational Chemistry and Materials Science (CCMS) Summer Institute Fellow @ LLNL ( - )
Predoctoral Appointee @ Argonne ( - )
Research Aide Technical @ Argonne ( - )
M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering @ Northwestern ( - )
B.S. in Materials Physics @ Shanghai University ( - )
Marathon runner 3:34:53 | Amateur Boxer | Hackathon Lover
Check out my Medium blog, and a list of my running race results
Research Interest
Developing agentic AI for biological systems
Computational design of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) for carbon capture and water harvesting
(Previous) Combining high-throughput DFT calculation and machine learning to accelerate the search for thermodynamically stable inorganic crystalline materials
(Previous) Materials representations and graph neural networks
Computational Materials Science | High-throughput DFT Calculation | Machine Learning
News
2026
- I presented a poster at NRT annual meeting in Colorado School of Mines
- Our PALM: Physics-Aware Leakage Minimizer received AIMEMS NRT Team Funding
2025
- I attended the CECAM-US-CENTRAL 2025 Conference Machine Learning Advances for Molecular and Materials Property Prediction at University of Notre Dame
- I started serving as a reviewer for Machine Learning Science and Technology journal
- Our team PolymerSphere started working on Open Polymer Challenge
- I attended AI4Chemistry Summit at NYU
- Our collaborative paper "Bayesian Optimization Hackathon for Chemistry and Materials" is now available on ChemArxiv [Link]
- I started working as a research assistant in Dr. Arvind Ramanathan's lab at Argonne
- I finished Life Time Chicago Spring Half in the 98th place with a finish time of 1:29:57
- Our team, Catalyze Q, has been featured on Polsky website Link
- Our paper "Cartesian Equivariant Representations for Learning and Understanding Molecular Orbitals" is now available on ChemRxiv Link
- I participated in AI + Science hackathon hosted by Data Science Institute at UChicago
- I started serving as Professional Development Chair at Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) UChicago Chapter
- Our paper "A generative artificial intelligence framework based on a molecular diffusion model for the design of metal-organic frameworks for carbon capture" is included in Communications Chemistry's 2024 Editors' Highlights Collection Link
- I started working as a research assistant in PME department at UChicago
- Our paper "Wide-ranging predictions of new stable compounds powered by recommendation engines" is now available on Science Advances Link
2024
- I visited UC Berkeley to discuss about my ongoing research project
- Our collaborative paper "Reflections from the 2024 Large Language Model (LLM) Hackathon for Applications in Materials Science and Chemistry" is now available on Arxiv! [Link]
- I attended Chem AI satellite events Link
- I finished my first marathon in 3:34:53 during the Philadelphia Marathon weekend Certificate Link
- The Climate Frontiers: Energy and Climate event was hosted at UChicago Link
- I attended 2024 ALCF Hands-on HPC Workshop at Argonne Link
- The first session of I-Corps program at the Polsky Center started
- I am officially a mentor in the Global Mentor Network program at UChicago I-House Link
- I attended the AI for Multidisciplinary Exploration and Discovery (AIMED) Workshop on Heterogeneous Catalysis workshop Link
- I attended the ALCF Intro to AI-driven Science on Supercomputers workshop Link
- I finished my first half marathon in 1:43:25 during 2024 HOKA Life Time Chicago Half Marathon Link
- I presented a poster on behalf of the Gagliardi group during PME orientation week
- I presented a poster at CD4DC all hands meeting Link
- Our team, CatalyzeQ, has been selected to participate in the Polsky I-Corps program Link
- I attended the 1st Midwest MOF conference Link
- I finished in the 28th place (39:29) in the Run Mag Mile Chicago 10k run Link Certificate
- I started as NSF-NRT AIMEMS Trainee Link
- I attended the NCHC end-to-end LLM bootcamp hosted by National Center for High-performance Computing Link
- I was accepted as NSF-NRT AIMEMS trainee Link
- I attended "AI For Science and Nobel Turing Challenge Initiative Conference" Link
- I attended the Artificial Intelligence for Materials Science (AIMS) workshop at NIST Link
- I attended the "Frontiers on Computational Reaction Prediction" workshop hosted by CECAM Link
- I attended "Summer Virtual Workshop on Machine Learning Performance and Scalability" hosted by NCA Delta Project Office [Link]
- I attended the SciFM Summer School organized by University of Michigan and Argonne Link
- Our team (Agent 47 Materials) won the 1st place in AI4Science hackathon Link Slides
- I attended "Crash Course in Supercomputing" hosted by LBNL Link
- Our team advanced to the final round of AI4Science hackathon Code Website
- I attended "Expanding AI and next generation simulation tools to accelerate scientific discovery" hosted by C&EN and Microsoft Link
- I attended "Future of Materials Discovery Workshop" hosted by University College London Link
- I completed my first paper review for Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data journal
- I participated in the AI4S Cup - OpenLAM Challenge - LAM Crystal Philately Link
- I joined Catalyst Design for Decarbonation Center (CD4DC) funded by DOE Link
- Our work on appeared on DOE NETL Carbon Capture News Letter June 2024 Link
- I (remotely) attended the AI≡Science: Strengthening the Bond Between the Sciences and Artificial Intelligence Workshop hosted by the Simons Institute Link
- I scored 98 in TOPIK II 2024 [Link]
- I wrote a blog post titled "Hackathon 101" [Link]
- I wrote a blog post titled "How we won reincarnate prize for LLM hackathon for applications in materials and chemistry 2024" [Link]
- I attended the "Data Sciences for Mesoscale and Macroscale Materials Models" workshop organized by Institute of Mathematics and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) at University of Chicago Link
- Our team won the "reincarnate prize" of LLM hackathon Medium Code
- We successfully completed the AI+Science hackathon Code Slides Certificate
- I participated in Large Language Model (LLM) hackathon for applications in chemistry and materials science Link
- I participated in AI+Science hackathon organized by the Data Science Institute (DSI) at University of Chicago Link
- Our working paper "Deep Learning for Molecular Orbitals" is now available on ChemRxiv Link
- I participated in MLMR's annual materials informatics competition 2024 [Link]
- I attended the "Learning Collective Variables and Coarse Grained Models" workshop organized by Institute of Mathematics and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) at University of Chicago Link
- I attended the "Machine Learning Force Fields" workshop organized by Institute of Mathematics and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) at University of Chicago Link
- I attended the "Machine Learning in Electronic-Structure Theory" workshop organized by Institute of Mathematics and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) at University of Chicago Link
- Our team won the 6th in the Bayesian Optimization Hackathon! We found that Thompson sampling is 2x more efficient in finding high-performing metal-organic framework (MOF) candidates compared to random sampling. [Code] Link
- I participated in the Bayesian Optimization Hackathon for Chemistry and Materials organized by Accelerated Consortium at University of Toronto. Link [Github] Youtube Slides
- I attended the "Materials Informatics: Tutorials and Hands-On" workshop organized by Institute of Mathematics and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) at University of Chicago Link
- Check out my Classical Molecular and Materials Modeling term project presentation Youtube
- I presented a poster at PME admitted student visit weekend
- Our work on isoreticular design of pcu MOFs for CO2 capture is now available in Nature Communications Chemistry Link Behind the paper
- Our Argonne team won Editors' Choice Award for Best Use of High-Performance Data Analysis & Artificial Intelligence by HPCwire Link
- I made a poster for PME Lunar New Year celebration Link
- Our work on MOF+AI has been featured in Argonne News Link
- I joined the Gagliardi group at University of Chicago Link
2023
- I delivered a talk at the CD4DC All Hands Meeting at University of Chicago Link [Photo]
- I started my PhD at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at University of Chicago
- I delivered a talk at the group meeting at LLNL
- I delivered a talk at the 2023 Artificial Intelligence for Materials Science (AIMS) meeting LinkPresentation
- I made a Youtube video about Yosemite Link
- I delivered a talk at the Computational Chemistry and Materials Science Summer Institute student meeting
- I made a Youtube video about San Francisco Link
- Our paper "End-to-end AI framework for interpretable prediction of molecular and crystal properties" is available on Machine Learning: Science and Technology Link
- The code for GHP-MOFassemble is available on Github Link
- Our paper "GHP-MOFassemble: Diffusion modeling, high throughput screening, and molecular dynamics for rational discovery of novel metal-organic frameworks for carbon capture at scale" is available on Arxiv Link
- I started my internship as a Computational Chemistry and Materials Science (CCMS) Summer Institute Fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- I completed my Predoctoral Appointee position at Argonne National Laboratory
- The Science Olympiad varsity team I coached at Marie Murphy School finished in the 6th place in the nationals. Congrats!
- The Science Olympiad varsity team I coached at Marie Murphy School advanced to the nationals. Congrats!
- I delivered a talk at AIChE Midwest Regional Conference
- Our code for diffusion model-based metal-organic framework (MOF) generation algorithm for carbon capture is now available on GitLab Link
- I accepted PhD offer from UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
- I started as a Predoctoral Appointee at Argonne National Laboratory
- I posted my first Youtube video on half marathon training preparation Video
- The Science Olympiad varsity team I coached at Marie Murphy School advanced to the states. Congrats!
- I visited Carnegie Mellon University Materials Science department
- I visited UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Photo
- I submitted an abstract to the AIChE Midwest Regional Conference Abstract
- I presented a poster at the MaRDA Annual Meeting Poster
- I wrote a blog post about my experience participating in iQuHack 2023 Blog
- I participated in iQuHack quantum computing hackathon hosted by MIT iQuISE Website Github Blog
- I passed JLPT N1 Certificate
- I participated in the Solid-state Materials Chemistry and Data Science Hackathon (SSMCDST) hosted by Lehigh University Final PresentationWebsite
- I wrote a blog post on my experience as a Master's student in Materials Engineering at Northwestern Blog
- I wrote a blog post on my recent work on i-MAX phases Blog
2022
- Subscribe to my blog post to learn more about computational materials science [Blog]
- Our paper End-to-end AI Framework for Interpretable Prediction of Molecular and Crystal Properties is now available on Arxiv Paper
- I graduated from Northwestern University with a Master's degree in Materials Science and Engineering
- I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) N1
- I participated in the Battery Informatics & ML Competition hosted by NIST and TRI
- First day of coaching practice for Science Olympiad at Marie Murphy School
- I finished in the 99th place in Abott Chicago 5k Certificate Result
- First day of mentoring students at Nichols Middle School Morning Mentor
- I contributed to XSEDE and NERSC proposals for awarded high-performance computing resources
- I presented a rapid fire research talk on QMT Journal Club meeting Slide
- I delivered a group presentation in the Wolverton group meeting Slide
- I developed code for calculating site-specific chemical similarity of materials Github link
- I attended the Machine Learning for Materials Research (MLMR) Seminar 2022 hosted by UMD Group Picture
- I wrote two extractor scripts for materials data visualization on clowder Slide
- I attended 2022 MaRDA Summer Hackathon at GaTech Github Photo
- I finished in the 38th place in Under Armour Chicago 10K Result
- I presented a poster at the Artificial Intelligence for Materials Science (AIMS) Meeting Poster Presentation
- I presented a poster at the C3S Symposium Poster
- I attended the Argonne Quantum Computing Tutorial
- I started my summer internship as a Research Aide Technical at Argonne National Lab
- I attended the Computational Representation of Materials Workshop hosted by TRI
- Our team won the 4th place in the Stanford Cleantech Challenge Slides
- I presented a research poster at the Materials Data Alliance (MaRDA) Meeting Page
- Our team won the 1st place in the ALCF AI Hackathon [Page]