Professor of Materials Science and Engineering; Director of the Molecular Foundry; Director of the Materials Project; Faculty Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Email: kapersson@lbl.gov
Persson obtained her Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden in 2001. She is a Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley with a joint appointment as Faculty Staff Scientist at LBNL. Persson is the Director and co-founder of the Materials Project (www.materialsproject.org); one of the most visible of the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) programs attracting over a hundred thousand users worldwide. She is known for her advancement of data-driven materials design and materials informatics. Applications include materials in extreme pH environments, novel multivalent electrode and electrolyte materials, novel photocatalysts for water splitting and CO2 reduction, and new polar materials. Persson serves as an Associate Editor for Chemistry of Materials, on the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure, on the MRS Program Development Subcommittee and is the MGI ambassador for The Metal, Minerals, and Materials Society (TMS). She is one of five thrust leads in the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) and heads the NSF-funded Local Spectroscopy Data Infrastructure. She has received 2018 DOE Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award, the 2017 TMS Faculty Early Career Award, the LBNL Director’s award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement (2013) and she is 2018 Kavli Fellow. She holds several patents in the clean energy space and has co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications.