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:
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
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
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)
Jennie Ren -- Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA (Samueli Research Scholar, 2023)
Hugo Onghai -- Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA (IBM Undergraduate Research Program Scholar)
Current & Recent Visitors:
Russell Kislik -- High school student intern, Science Academy STEM Magnet, North Hollywood, CA
(Summer 2024)
Boaz Yoo -- High school student intern, Science Academy STEM Magnet, North Hollywood, CA (Summer 2024)
Philip Chen -- High school student intern, Walnut High School, CA (Summer 2023)
Shivam Sharma -- Graduate Student, Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota
Alysa Phattanaphibul -- Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA
Claire Zhang -- Undergraduate intern, Department of Mathematics, UCLA (Summer 2022)
Photo Gallery:
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.).
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.).