معرفی
Pratyush Tiwary is the Millard and Lee Alexander Professor in Chemical Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST). He also leads the Therapeutics Discovery team at the Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC). Tiwary’s research integrates statistical mechanics, molecular simulations, and artificial intelligence to study rare events in complex systems, including drug unbinding mechanisms, protein dynamics, and material nucleation. His work bridges disciplines, with affiliations spanning Chemical Physics, Biophysics, Physics, and Materials Science.
Education: B.Tech. from IIT-BHU (2007), M.S. and Ph.D. in Materials Science from Caltech (2008–2012), followed by postdocs at ETH Zurich and Columbia University. He has taught courses in statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and computational biochemistry, emphasizing interdisciplinary training.
Research focuses on rare event simulation, machine learning-augmented molecular dynamics, and translational drug discovery. Key projects include developing RAVE (Reweighted Autoencoded Variational Bayes) for enhanced sampling and AlphaFold2-RAVE for protein ensemble generation. His lab collaborates with NIH and industry (e.g., Schrödinger) to advance AI-driven drug design and biomaterials research.
Recognitions include the NSF CAREER Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, and multiple ‘Emerging Investigator’ accolades. He serves as an Associate Editor for Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation and on the Scientific Advisory Board of Schrödinger.
Teaching and mentorship are central to his mission, with a commitment to fostering curiosity-driven research and equitable access to computational tools via open-source software and free coding bootcamps.
