Alán Aspuru-Guzik
Appointment
Program Co-Director
Canada CIFAR AI Chair
Accelerated Decarbonization
Pan-Canadian AI Strategy
About
Appointed Canada CIFAR AI Chair – 2018
Alán Aspuru-Guzik is a professor of chemistry and computer science at the University of Toronto and is also the Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical Chemistry and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. He is a CIFAR Lebovic Fellow in the Accelerated Decarbonization program. Aspuru-Guzik also holds a Google Industrial Research Chair in Quantum Computing. He is the director of the Acceleration Consortium, a University of Toronto-based strategic initiative that aims to gather researchers from industry, government and academia around pre-competitive research topics related to the lab of the future.
Aspuru-Guzik conducts research in the interfaces of quantum information, chemistry, machine learning. He was a pioneer in the development of algorithms and experimental implementations of quantum computers and quantum simulators dedicated to chemical systems. He has studied the role of quantum coherence in the transfer of excitonic energy in photosynthetic complexes and has accelerated the discovery by calculating organic semiconductors, organic photovoltaic energy, organic batteries and organic light-emitting diodes. He has worked on molecular representations and generative models for the automatic learning of molecular properties. Currently, Aspuru-Guzik is interested in automation and “autonomous” chemical laboratories.
Aspuru-Guzik is editor-in-chief of the journal Digital Discovery as well as co-founder of Zapata AI and Kebotix.
Awards
- Chemical Engineering Medal, 2023
- John C. Polanyi Award, 2023
- 26th Shih-I Pai Distinguished Lecturer, 2020
- Elizabeth P. Laird Public Lecturer, 2019
- Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical & Quantum Chemistry, 2018
- Google Focused Award for Quantum Computing, 2018
- MIT Technology Review Young Innovator Under 35 (TR35), 2010
- American Chemical Society Hewlett-Packard Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2010
- Sloan Research Fellowship, 2009
Relevant Publications
Blau, S.M., Bennett, D.I.G., Kreisbeck, C., Scholes, G.D., & Aspuru-Guzik, A. (2018). Local protein solvation drives direct down-conversion in phycobiliprotein PC645 via incoherent vibronic transport. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 115(15), E3342–E3350.
Chiykowski, V.A., Cao, Tan, H.,…Y., Aspuru-Guzik, A., et al. (2018). Precise control of thermal and redox properties of organic hole-transport materials. Angewandte Chemie, 130(47), 15755-15759.
Blaskovits, J.T., Bura, T., Beaupre, S., Lopez, S.A.,…Aspuru-Guzik, A.,et al. (2017). A study of the degree of fluorination in regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene). Macromolecules, 50(1), 162-74.
Lopez, S.A., Sanchez-Lengeling, B., de Goes Soares, J., & Aspuru-Guzik, A. (2017). Design principles and top non-fullerene acceptor candidates for organic. Joule, 1(4), 857-70.
Chandrasekaran, S., Aghtar, M., Valleau, S., Aspuru-Guzik, A., et al. (2015). Influence of force fields and quantum chemistry approach on spectral densities of bchl a in solution and in fmo protein. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 119(31), 9995-10004.
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