Events
Past Event
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Chris Wolverton, Northwestern University "Using Artificial Intelligence to Discover New Materials"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details

Speaker:
Chris Wolverton, Jerome B. Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
Title:
Using Artificial Intelligence to Discover New Materials
Abstract:
Rational, data-driven materials discovery has the potential to make research and development efforts far faster and cheaper. In such a paradigm, computer models trained to find patterns in massive chemical datasets would rapidly scan compositions and systematically identify attractive candidates. Here, we present several examples of our work on developing machine learning (ML) and deep learning methods capable of creating predictive models using a diverse range of materials data. As input training data, we demonstrate ML on both large computational datasets of DFT calculations, as implemented in the Open Quantum Materials Database (oqmd.org), and also experimental databases of materials properties. We construct ML models using a large and chemically diverse list of attributes, which we demonstrate can be used as an effective tool to automatically learn intuitive design rules, predict diverse properties of crystalline and amorphous materials, such as formation energy, specific volume, band gap energy, and glass-forming ability, and accelerate combinatorial searches.
Speaker Bio:
Chris Wolverton is the Jerome B. Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. Before joining the faculty, he worked at the Research and Innovation Center at Ford Motor Company, where he was group leader for the Hydrogen Storage and Nanoscale Modeling Group. He received his BS degree in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin, his PhD degree in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley, and performed postdoctoral work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). His research interests include computational studies of a variety of energy-efficient and environmentally friendly materials via first-principles atomistic calculations, high-throughput and machine learning tools to accelerate materials discovery, and “multiscale” methodologies for linking atomistic and microstructural scales. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Society for Metals. He has published more than 300 papers, with >20,000 citations, and an h-index of 72.
Live Stream:
Time
Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO Fall Seminar Series returns on Sept 24th!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
//
Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details

The Wednesdays @ NICO Fall Seminar Series returns on September 24th and will run through November 12th, 2025. Please visit our web site in early September for detailed speaker information, talk titles and abstracts.
This fall, we are honored to host the following distinguished speakers:
9/24 - Emma Alexander, Dept of Computer Science, Northwestern University
10/1 - Sebastien Martin, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
10/8 - Tomer Ullman, Dept of Psychology, Harvard University
10/15 - Patrick Park, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
10/22 - Max Kreminski, Midjourney
10/29 - Elizabeth Gerber, Mechanical Engineering and Communication Studies, Northwestern University
11/5 - Julio Ottino, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University
11/12 - Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Google Research
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: TBA via Zoom
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, September 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)