Kari Laasonen

Kari Laasonen is a Professor at Aalto University's Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, specializing in Computational Chemistry. He previously held the same professorship at the University of Oulu (1996–2010) and established Aalto's Computational Chemistry research group in 2010. His work bridges theoretical physics and physical chemistry, with expertise in

• Density Functional Theory (DFT)
• Molecular Dynamics
• Electrochemical Reaction Modeling
• Catalyst Development

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His research focuses on computational electrochemistry, hydrogen evolution, CO2 reduction, and materials for energy storage, particularly redox flow batteries. Key projects include

• H2fromHE (Hydrogen Production by Hydrocarbon Electrolysis)
• Zn-DEN (Zn Battery Electrolyte Additives)
• ReZilient (Zinc-Air Flow Batteries)
• XAI-BAT-Aka (Explainable AI for Flow Battery Materials)

under EU and Academy of Finland funding.

He has contributed to 200+ publications and 9 datasets, including DFT and machine learning applications for electrochemical systems. His work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4: Quality Education) and involves collaborations with institutions in Switzerland (IBM Research Laboratory), the U.S. (University of Pennsylvania), and Finland’s Materials Cloud. Recent media appearances include discussing AI's role in chemistry and DFT studies on water dissociation and CO2 reduction mechanisms.