John Kitchin

John Kitchin is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, affiliated with the College of Engineering. He leads the Kitchin Research Group, focusing on catalysis, energy systems, and the integration of machine learning into scientific discovery. His work bridges computational modeling and experimental validation, with contributions to surrogate models, materials development, and self-driving laboratories.

Education: B.S. Chemistry (NCSU), M.S./Ph.D. Chemical Engineering (University of Delaware). Postdoctoral fellowship at the Fritz Haber Institute (Berlin). Tenure-track faculty since 2006.

Research interests include catalyst design, energy storage, molecular simulation, and AI-driven experimentation. Key projects involve optimizing hydrogen infrastructure and accelerating discovery via graph neural networks and surrogate modeling.

Awards include DOE Early Career Award (2010), Presidential Early Career Award (2011), and AIChE Innovation Award (2023). He holds the John E. Swearingen Professorship and has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles.

Labs/Teams: Kitchin Research Group, collaborating with industry and academia on materials and energy projects. Develops open-source tools like litdb and Claude-Light for scientific automation.