Kristin Persson

Kristin Persson is the Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. She directs the Materials Project, a multi-institutional initiative using high-throughput computing to predict inorganic material properties for energy applications. Her research bridges computational physics, chemistry, and machine learning to accelerate materials discovery.

Research Focus: Persson's group develops atomistic computational methods for clean energy materials, specializing in:

• Battery technologies (lithium-ion, multivalent, solid-state)
• Data mining and machine learning for materials property prediction
• Electrolyte design and interfacial reactions
• Sustainable material circularity (e.g., polymer recycling)

Her work emphasizes predictive modeling to guide experimental synthesis.

Publication Trends: Recent articles (2023–2025) demonstrate:

• Dominant focus on battery materials (cathodes, electrolytes) and computational methods.
• Integration of machine learning for property prediction and reaction modeling.
• Themes of sustainability (recycling, earth-abundant materials) and high-throughput screening.

Awards & Honors:

• National Academy of Engineering Member (2025)
• U.S. DOE Distinguished Scientist Fellow (2024)
• Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Foreign Member (2024)
• Cyril Stanley Smith Award (2022)
• Fellow: AAAS, APS, Materials Research Society

Research Infrastructure: Leads the Persson Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab's Energy Sciences Area. The group maintains open-source databases (e.g., Materials Project) and collaborates globally with experimentalists to validate computational predictions.