People – Coley Research Group

Connor W. Coley
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Connor received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Caltech and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering MIT. His research interests are in how data science and laboratory automation can be used to streamline discovery in the chemical sciences.

Postdoctoral Associates & Fellows and Research Scientists

Aparajita Dasgupta
Postdoctoral Associate

Aparajita received her PhD in Materials Design and Innovation from the University at Buffalo in June 2020. She is currently interested in using data science and machine learning to optimize the manufacture and processing of biologics.

Thijs Stuyver
Postdoctoral Associate

Thijs received his PhD in Chemistry from the Free University of Brussels in June 2018. Subsequently, he moved to Israel to work with Prof. Sason Shaik at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before joining the Coley research group in April 2021. He is interested in augmenting machine learning models for reaction prediction and discovery with the help of expert knowledge in physical organic chemistry.

Matteo Aldeghi
Research Scientist

Matteo completed his PhD in Biochemistry from Oxford in 2016. He later moved to Germany to work in Bert de Groot's group at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry as a Humboldt Research Fellow. In July 2019, he joined Alán Aspuru-Guzik's group as a Vector Postdoctoral Fellow, before joining the Coley research group in June 2021. Matteo is broadly interested in the use of data-driven as well as physics-based computational approaches in chemical and pharmaceutical research.

Graduate Students

David Graff
PhD Student

David completed his B.A. in Chemistry at Princeton and is now working on his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Harvard as a joint student between the Coley group and the Shakhnovich group. His work focuses on using optimization and machine learning to accelerate the discovery of drug-like molecules.

Itai Levin
PhD Student

Itai received his B.A. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Cornell and is a PhD student at MIT in Biological Engineering, co-advised with Chris Voigt. He is interested in improving computer-aided synthesis planning for pathways that involve enzymatic catalysis.

Samuel Goldman
PhD Student

Sam received his A.B. in Computer Science from Harvard in 2019 and is a PhD student at MIT in Computational and Systems Biology. He is interested in using machine learning methods to develop better models of enzymatic catalysis.

Priyanka Raghavan
PhD Student

Priyanka graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, where she used quantum science to engineer new generation MRI machines and biological imaging techniques. Working towards her PhD at MIT, she is exploring problems involving intelligent discovery using AI/ML, directed evolution, combinatorial chemistry, and robotics.

Zhengkai Tu
SM Student

Zhengkai received his B.ASc. in Chemical Engineering from Waterloo and is a master student at MIT in Computational Science and Engineering. He previously worked on deep learning applications in NLP and is currently interested in using machine learning for reaction prediction and retrosynthesis.

Wenhao Gao
PhD Student

Wenhao received his B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University and his M.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He joined the group in 2020 and his research interest focuses on using artificial intelligence and robotic automation to accelerate biological and chemical discovery processes.

Keir Adams
PhD Student

Keir received his B.S. in Chemistry and Molecular Engineering from the University of Chicago in 2020 and is now a PhD student in Chemical Engineering and Computation at MIT. His research focuses on advancing molecular representation for machine learning-assisted chemical discovery.

Herry (Tianyi) Jin
PhD Student

Herry received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Mathematics from UW-Madison in 2020 and now is a PhD student at MIT in Chemical Engineering, co-advised with Alfredo Alexander-Katz. He is interested in using machine learning and molecular modeling to promote enzyme stability via random copolymers.

Ria Das
MEng Student

Ria is an M.Eng. in Computer Science studying program synthesis and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on how ideas from program synthesis may be used to build more human-like AI. She recently became curious about the application of program synthesis/AI to the life sciences and other applied fields, and is interested in learning more about these domains part-time in the group.

Undergraduate Students

Katherine Lim
Undergraduate Student

Katherine is an undergrad student studying Computer Science and Molecular Biology at MIT. She is currently interested in data science and the development of therapeutics.

Jake Yasonik
Undergraduate Student

Jake is an undergraduate at MIT majoring in Computer Science and Molecular Biology. He is interested in generative machine learning models for de novo drug design.

Saul A. Vega Sauceda
Undergraduate Student

Saul is an undergraduate at MIT studying Computer Science and Molecular Biology. He is currently interested in the applications of computer-aided synthesis planning in the pharmaceutical field and finding renewable feedstocks.

Tyra Jones
Undergraduate Student

Tyra is a chemistry and chemical engineering major at Spelman College and the Georgia Institute of Technology working on computer-aided molecular discovery. She has an interest in skincare formulations and improving cosmetic products using machine learning models.

Jackson Burns
Undergraduate Student

Jackson is an undergraduate student at the University of Delaware studying chemical engineering and computer science. He is interested in the applications of HTE and ML to Heck-type cross-coupling reactions and plans to pursue a Ph.D in scientific computing with a focus in chemistry and engineering.

Lab Alumni

Min Htoo Lin (BS 2021, Nanyang Technological University): ADVANCE.AI