Cecilia ClementiView profile
Professor
Cecilia Clementi is a Professor of Chemistry at Rice University and an Einstein Visiting Professor at Freie Universität Berlin. Her work bridges computational chemistry, biophysics, and machine learning to advance molecular dynamics and protein folding research. PhD in Physics, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy Bachelor and Master in Physics, University of Florence and SISSA, Italy Clementi specializes in developing data-driven methods for molecular simulations, including coarse-grained modeling and nonlinear dimensionality reduction. Her research focuses on understanding protein folding mechanisms and free energy landscapes through integrative computational approaches. Notable contributions include applying machine learning to molecular dynamics force fields, creating augmented Markov models for experimental-data integration, and pioneering diffusion-map-based techniques for reaction coordinate identification. Her work has transformed how researchers model complex biomolecular processes. NSF-CAREER award (2004-2009) Welch Foundation Norman Hackerman Award (2009) Hamill Innovation Award (2007, 2014) Einstein Visiting Fellowship (2016-2019) NSF-funded Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) co-Director (2016-present) Clementi has secured significant grants, including the NSF-CAREER award and Welch Foundation funding. Her editorial roles include associate editorship at the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation , and she actively serves on scientific advisory boards like IPAM. Her publications highlight interdisciplinary collaborations merging chemistry, physics, and computational science.








