About
Hi, I’m Bryant
I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley, working with Prof. Kristin Persson at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I develop machine-learned interatomic potentials to simulate million-atom reactive interfaces in solid-state batteries—work that would take millions of CPU-hours with traditional methods.
My research has uncovered hidden SEI morphologies invisible to experimental characterization, explained passivation mechanisms through electronic structure analysis, and contributed to open-source tools used by 50+ researchers worldwide.
Research Highlights
1M atom, 10 ns reactive MD using bespoke ACE potentials—equivalent to millions of CPU-hours of AIMD
Revealed 4-layer heterogeneous interphase morphology invisible to XPS/SEM characterization
Core contributor to atomate2/MPMorph; 15k entries to Materials Project R2SCAN database
Current Projects
| Project | Impact |
|---|---|
| SEI Atomistic Modeling | First atomic-scale view of Li₇P₃S₁₁ interphase formation kinetics |
| Active Learning for Reactivity | Outperforms generative models (MatterGen, ChgGEN) for discovering reaction intermediates |
| MPMorph / Atomate2 | Automated amorphous structure workflows adopted by 50+ researchers |
| Na-Solid Interface ML | Distinguishing passivating SEI from conductive MCI via ionic mobility analysis |
Research Visualizations
Amorphous interphase passivation evolution
Li₇P₃S₁₁ 1M atom 10 ns growth simulation
Glassy structure Voronoi analysis
Correlated transport kinetics to decode morphology
Training dataset architecture for reactivity MLIPs
Amorphous void visualization for ionic transport
Solid state reactivity kinetics
News
- Feb 2026 — Paper submitted: Atomistic Understanding of SEI via MLIPs (arXiv preprint)
- Nov 2025 — UCB MSE Corrosion Award for ML framework development
- Dec 2025 — Review paper: Role of MLIPs in Solid-State Batteries
- May 2025 — Paper accepted in J. Phys. Chem. C: SEI formation in Li/Li₇P₃S₁₁
- Apr 2025 — Oral presentation at MRS Spring Meeting, Seattle
- Jan 2025 — Paper published: Atomate2 Modular Workflows in Digital Discovery
Background
Materials Science & Engineering · Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science
Advisor: Prof. Kristin A. Persson, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Materials Science & Engineering, magna cum laude (GPA 3.87) · Minor in Applied Mathematics
Dabo Group (Pt–Pd electrocatalysts, DFT + cluster expansion)