Wenhao Gao

Wenhao Gao is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, joining in January 2027. He is a member of the Innovation in Data Engineering and Science (IDEAS) group. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University under Professors Grant Rotskoff and Stefano Ermon, and completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT under Connor W. Coley. His research focuses on integrating AI with chemistry to advance molecular discovery, particularly in drug design and sustainable materials. He has been recognized with prestigious awards including the Google PhD Fellowship, Takeda Fellowship, and Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia honor in Healthcare & Science.

Education includes a B.Sc. from Peking University, M.S.E. from Johns Hopkins University, and PhD from MIT. His work emphasizes combining chemical priors with machine learning to enhance molecular modeling and design. He is actively recruiting PhD students and postdocs for his lab at Penn, focusing on interdisciplinary projects at the AI-chemistry interface.

Key research areas include generative AI for chemical space navigation, synthesis planning algorithms, and scalable molecular optimization. Notable contributions include the mol_opt benchmark for molecular design algorithms and foundational work in therapeutic science through AI. His lab seeks to bridge computational methods with real-world applications in therapeutics and sustainability.

• Awards: Google PhD Fellowship, Takeda Fellowship, CAS Future Leaders 2025, D. E. Shaw Research Fellowship, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia
• Grants: Supported by Google, Takeda, and MIT initiatives
• Labs/Teams: Leading the Gao Lab at Penn, collaborating with IDEAS and prior groups at MIT and Stanford