Congratulations to Boris Kozinsky

Recipient of the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising

By Leah Burrows and Carole Mezian
May 9, 2024

Harvard MRSEC researcher Boris Kozinsky has been selected to receive the Capers W. McDonald and Marion K. McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising.

Boris Kozinsky is a Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering with the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Professor Kozinsky is the Research areas include Applied Mathematics; Applied Physics; Bioengineering; Computer Science; Electrical Engineering; Environmental Science and Engineering; Materials and Mechanical Engineering; and Science, Technology, Innovation, and Public Policy. He is also a Principal Scientist at Bosch Research. He attained his B.S. degrees in Physics, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, and also received his PhD degree in Physics from MIT.

He then established and led the atomistic computational materials design team at Bosch Research in Cambridge MA. In 2018, he started the Materials Intelligence Research group at Harvard that works at the intersection of fundamental materials physics, computational chemistry, and data science. His group develops and combines atomistic and electronic structure computations with machine learning for understanding and predicting quantum-level microscopic effects, particularly ionic, electronic and thermal transport and transformations in materials for energy storage and conversion. His work on the development and application of computational methods led to computation-driven design of materials for thermoelectrics, batteries, catalysts, and functional polymers.

Boris Kozinsky works at the intersection of fundamental physics of materials properties, efficient computational algorithms, and machine learning methods. The overall vision is to leverage the rapidly expanding power of computation and data science to accelerate discovery and design of new practical materials needed for breakthroughs in energy storage and conversion systems. Performance of these systems is controlled by atomic-scale transport and reaction mechanisms and their coupling at different length and time scales that are difficult to probe by experiment alone. Atomistic and electronic structure computations are emerging as a powerful tool for understanding and distilling the design rules governing quantum-level microscopic effects.

He was recently named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and led a team that was selected as a finalist for the ACM Gordon Bell Prize in scientific computing.

Boris Kozinsky, Harvard University
Harvard's NSF-MRSEC IRG II: Non-Equilibrium Phenomena in Mechanically Soft Systems

At the Harvard MRSEC IRG II where Professor Kozinsky focuses his research, he has co-authored several papers affiliated with the NSF-MRSEC, including some papers listed with the Harvard MRSEC Publications 2020–2026.

Award: Capers W. McDonald and Marion K. McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising

About McDonald Award: It recognizes leaders in engineering and applied sciences who, as exemplary mentors and advisors, have significantly and consistently supported the personal and professional development of others.

Each year, the Capers W. McDonald and Marion K. McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising award is given to a distinguished professor. It was established by Capers and Marion McDonald in 2008, and recognizes leaders in engineering and applied sciences, who are exemplary mentors and advisors, have significantly and consistently supported the personal and professional development of others.

Professor Kozinsky has co-authored many other papers listed at Google Scholar Papers, which the papers have been cited ~10,000 times.

Authorship, funding, disclosures

Boris Kozinsky's research was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Harvard University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center grant DMR-2011754.

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