Welcome to the LCMD

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. (Richard P. Feynman, 1967).

LCMD is a computational/theoretical laboratory, focusing on electronic structure theory in the area of method development and conceptual work applied to the field of homogeneous catalysis and organic molecular materials. Our most recent research exploits the interplay between quantum chemistry, machine learning techniques (e.g., Q-stack) and data-driven pipelines (e.g., NaviCat platform) for molecules and materials discovery.

 

 

Big Data and Machine Learning for Chemistry Summer School – June 7-9

More Information: https://bdmlc2021.epfl.ch

Latest Cover

Cover Art by Raimon Fabregat

News

February 2023 With the start of the semester LCMD is happy to welcome: Thanapat Worakul (master student from Mahidol University, Thailand), Luca Schaufelberger (master student from ETHZ), Matthew Johnson (visiting PhD student from University of Alberta, Canada), Theo Neukomm (master student from EPFL).
January 2023 Two candidacy exams successfully defended by Juliette and Yuri. Congratulations!
December 2022 LCMD welcomes Osvaldo Hernandez as a new PhD student. Osvaldo did his bachelor studies in Mexico and obtained his master degree from the University of Madrid.
October 2022 Big congratulations to Yannick Alonso for receiving his Master degree from EPFL and welcome back to LCMD, this time as a PhD student! We are also happy to welcome Matthieu Haeberle for a PhD in co-direction with Fritz Eisenbrand (EPFL mathematics).
September 2022 Welcome to our semester students, Malte Franke and Lucien Brey.
September  2022 Clemence has officially started her sabbatical semester at Caltech. Sorry LCMD for the late group meetings!
September  2022 Liam Marsh, from ENS Lyon, is coming back to LCMD to start his PhD! Welcome back Liam.
July 2022  Congratulations to Simone Gallarati for his poster award at WATOC 2022 (Vancouver). Read his interview here and stay tuned to learn more about his work on OSCAR.
June 2022  Welcome to our new visiting student Alexander Makaveev coming from Oxford with the Excellence Research Internship Program. Congratulations to Dr. Veronika Juraskova for being award a SNSF postdoc.mobility fellowship to join the group pf Prof. Fernanda Duarte in Oxford.
Spring 2022 This spring, LCMD had to let some of its oldest members move to their next career step. We will miss you: Dr. Maria Fumanal, Dr. Sergi Vela, Dr. Raimon Fabregat and Dr. Alberto Fabrizio. This time with you was fantastic! 
April 2022 Some delayed news on awards: Clemence Corminboeuf was awarded the Per-Olov Löwdin lecture 2022, the Almlöf–Gropen lecture 2022 and the Heilbronner-Hückel lecture 2021. Kudos to all the LCMD members for their involvements.
March 2022 Congratulations to Terry for being an EPFL finalist of MT180! We loved his performance!
January 2022 Welcome to our new PhD student, Juliette Schleicher, who did her undergraduate studies at the University of Heidelberg.
December 2021 LCMD welcomes Yuri Cho, who is starting her PhD with us. Yuri did her master thesis in Basel with Prof. Anatole von Lilienfeld for which she received a MARVEL Inspire fellowship.
 November 2021 Big congratulations to Veronika and Raimon, who passed their PhD oral exam the same week. 
October 2021 Welcome to, Alexandre Schoepfer, a PhD student joint with the Waser lab. Congratulations to Puck for passing her candidacy exam! Congratulations to Veronika Juraskova who received the SCGC  teaching award.
September 2021 Happy to host three new semester master students. Patricia Brandl (EPFL), Thanapat Worakul (Thailand) and Yannick Alonso (EPFL). 
June 2021 Very happy to welcome Hanna Cramer, a visiting PhD student from MPI CEC under the supervision of Walter Leitner.
May 2021 We are happy to welcome, Yanan, a visiting doctoral student from Peking University. 
February 2021 LCMD welcomes a new master student, Liam Marsh from ENS Lyon. Liam will perform his master thesis with us working at the quantum chemistry/machine learning interface.
January 2021 Clemence Corminboeuf is a new ACS associate editor for the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation.
January 2021 LCMD welcomes, Bruna Sanchez Pladevall, a visiting PhD student from Maseras group at ICIQ.
October 2020 Congratulations to Ksenia and Simone for successfully passing their candidacy exam! Exciting science up front! 
October 2020 LCMD is happy to finally welcome the first post-covid members: Pit Steinbach, a master student from Aachen, Puck Van Gerwen, a PhD student from UniBasel, and two new postdocs from LCT Paris, Dr. Ruben Laplaza (PhD with Drs Julia Contreras-Garcia and Victor Polo) and Dr. Frederic Celerse (PhD with Jean-Philip Piquemal). 
October 2020 Saying good bye to Dr. Kun-Han Lin, starting his next career step as a SNF fellow with Dr. Denis Andrienko at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.
September 2020 It is official after their PhD public defense: LCMD congratulates two new doctors, Dr. Alberto Fabrizio and Dr. Kun-Han Lin!
August 2020 NCCR catalysis is officially launched!
July 2020 Great PhD oral exam, bravo Kun.
June 2020 Our master students David Girardier and Miyeon Chang students survived to the covid semester and terminated their project at LCMD. A lot of time spent on zoom but great results! Congratulations for their big achievement.
May 2020 Most of us are back on campus (respecting the covid measures). 
March 2020 Congratulation to Alberto, who brilliantly passed his PhD oral exam on March 16. On the same day, LCMD is locked down because of Covid-19.
February 2020 Sinjini officially terminated her master thesis at LCMD and is now ready to successfully defend it at her home university.
Februrary 2020 LCMD welcomes Dr. Maria Fumanal, Dr. Marc Garner and Dune Andre. Maria is starting her MSCA actions project, D3AiSF. Marc was awarded an independent research fund from Denmark and Dune was awarded a MARVEL INSPIRE fellowship for a master project.
January 2020 Farewell to Dr. Benjamin Meyer who is starting a new position at Philip Morris and to Alan Scheidegger, who has finished his semester project. Good luck to both!
October 2019 Clemence Corminboeuf will receive the Jaubert Prize 2020 from the university of Geneva. 
October 2019 LCMD is very happy to welcome two new Ph.D. students: Ksenia Briling (graduated from Moscow State University), Simone Gallarati (master from University of St. Andrews, UK), as well as a EPFL master student, Alan Scheidegger.
September 2019 Congratulations to Alberto and Veronika for winning the best oral and poster presentation awards sponsored by Metrohm at the fall meeting of the Swiss Chemical Society.
July 2019 LCMD welcomes Niahm O’Neill, who comes directly from Ireland for an internship.
July 2019 Congratulations to Manuel Cordova for successfully defended his Master thesis and to Theo Jaffrelot, who also terminated his master project with us. Two great works combining machine learning and catalysis or quantum chemistry to be published soon.
June 2019 A warm welcome to our new Canadian PhD student Terence (Terry) Blaskovits.
May 2019 Prof. Clemence Corminboeuf wins the 2019 teaching excellence award of SCGC for her outstanding contribution to teaching in first year, in computational chemistry and outreach for children, especially young girls.
May 2019 LCMD welcomes Sinjini Bhattacharjee our MARVEL INSPIRE master fellow. Sinjini is coming from IISER, Pune in India.
May 2019 Welcome to our new postdoc Shubhajit Das. Shubhajit graduated in Bangladore and will be working on the molecular volcano project.
April 2019 LCMD welcomes Edurne Avellanal, a visiting PhD student from Spain.
April 2019 Congratulations to Boodsarin for her Chemistry Travel Awards!
April 2019 LCMD is excited for Anya (Ganna) starting her independent career at HITS in Germany.
February 2019 Big Congratulations to Dr. Maria Fumanal, who was awarded a Marie Sklosowska-Curie Fellowship for a research project at LCMD starting next year.
February 2019 Manuel Cordova is starting his master thesis at LCMD. Manuel will combine computational homogenous catalysis with machine learning models.
January 2019 LCMD welcomes Théo Inizan as a new master thesis student. Theo will “machine learn” potential energy surfaces.
December 2018 A second ERC grant (consolidator, PUSHQCHEM) for LCMD. Well-done!
December 2018 LCMD welcomes Maria Fumanal as a new postdoc.
November 2018 Read between the molecules in a JACS perspective article with Anya and Kun focusing on organic semiconductors.
November 2018 Congratulations to Boodsarin and Matt for their work published in Organometallics.
September 2018 Congratulations to Anya for winning the best oral presentation award sponsored by Metrohm at the fall meeting of the Swiss Chemical Society.
August 2018 LCMD is happy to welcome Daniel Hollas from the group of Prof. Petr Slavicek. Daniel will be involved on a joint project with Solvay.
July 2018 Benjamin and Boodsarin’s MARVEL paper on machine learning models for homogeneous catalysts is out in Chemical Science.
June 2018 Looking forward to a great chemical adventure with the Solvay group.
May 2018 ACS LiveSlides presentation for Anya”s JPCL article “Noncovalent Molecular Electronics” is now available online.
April 2018 LCMD welcomes Dr. Sergi Vela, Marie Sklosowska-Curie Fellow, who just joined the lab.
April 2018 “Noncovalent Molecular Electronics” Yet another nice story in our favorite journal! Anya’s  J. Phys. Chem. Lett. article on unifying the picture of charge transport properties is out and listed as one of top accessed paper of the month. Well done!
April 2018 Kun-Han and Alberto win two 2018 Chemistry Travel Awards for LCMD! Big congratulations to both of them!
March 2018 “ScienceGirls”: a project by Leona and Maria. Clemence and her colleague Raffaella contributed to this wonderful project initiated by two 14 year old girls!
February 2018 Our ChemCatChem article “On the Generality of Molecular Volcano Plots” is listed as a very important paper.
February 2018 Alberto’s J. Phys. Chem. Lett. article on the importance of van der Waals interactions in excited state processes is in the list of the most read article of the month. Bravo Alberto!
February 2018 Big congratulations to Sergi Vela, who was awarded a Marie Sklosowska-Curie Fellowship for a research project at LCMD!
February 2018 LCMD is happy to welcome Prof. Konrad Patkowski (UofAuburn), for his sabbatical say. We are looking forward to our collaboration on SAPT and non-covalent interactions.
January 2018 Kun-Han published his second LCMD paper providing novel insights for the design of hole transport materials. Well-done!
January 2018 Laurent has successfully defended his PhD! Bravo for the hard work!
January 2018 Congratulations to Alberto for his J. Phys. Chem. Lett. article stressing the importance of van der Waals interaction in excited state processes!
January 2018 Clemence Corminboeuf receives the 2018-Early-Career Award in Theoretical Chemistry from the ACS Physical Chemistry Division.
December 2017 LCMD congratulates Antonio Prlj, who is officially a Ph.D.!
November 2017 Welcome to our new PhD student Veronika Juraskova! Veronika received her master in Prague, where she worked under the supervision of Prof. Petr Slavicek.
October 2017 Congratulations to our former LCMD members, Dr. Basile Curchod (Bristol) and Dr. Piotr de Silva (MIT), who got a Faculty position and will start their independent career at Durham and DTU respectively!
September 2017 LCMD welcomes a new Ph.D student from Spain, Ramon Fabregat. Ramon obtained his master degree from ENS Lyon.
September 2017 Kun-Han’s first paper on the rational design of hole transport organic materials is online.
August 2017 Congratulation to Pauline, who successfully defended her master work “compressed virtual orbital basis for dispersion interactions” carried out at UC Berkeley in the laboratory of Martin Head-Gordon.
August 2017 Anya and Pauline’s paper on how to tune thiophene-based single molecule junctions is out.
July 2017 Our “molecular volcanoes” go 3D in ACS catalysis: a creative way to screen and rationalize the performance of homogeneous catalysts.
March 2017 Our perspective JCP article: “Found in translation: Quantum chemical tools for grasping non-covalent interactions” is out. This is a great way to become familiar with the different methods available.
March 2017 Congratulations to Jian-Hao and Anya for getting the front cover of the Chem. Comm. issue #16!
March 2017 LCMD welcome a new PhD student, Boodsarin Sawatlon!
February 2017 Welcome to Thierry Tran, who is starting a semester project at LCMD.
January 2017 LCMD welcomes Giulia Mangione as a new member!
December 2016 Our ACS LiveSlidesTM presentation for Ganna’s JPCL article “Implications of Charge Penetration for Heteroatom-containing Organic Semiconductors” is now available online.
November 2016 Welcome to our new post-doc Dr. Benjamin Meyer! Benjamin did his PhD under the guidance of Alessandro Genoni (Universite de Lorraine).
October 2016 The LCMD work is advertised: DORI has been highlighted  in C&E News in the October 17, 2016 issue and our paper on tetraphenylethylene has become a subsection of a book chapter.
August 2016 Welcome to Kun-Han Lin our new PhD student. Kun-Han obtained his master degree from National Tawain University.
June 2016 Riccardo is now officially Dr. Petraglia. Congratulations to him.
May 2016 Congratulations to Riccardo who defended his oral exam. One step closer to becoming a Ph.D.
February 2016 LCMD welcomes Pauline Ollitrault, who is doing her semester project with us.
February 2016 Congratulations to Alberto Fabrizio for defending brillantly his master thesis! LCMD now welcomes him for a PhD thesis!
January 2016 Big congrats to Anya (Ganna) who received a highly selective Marie Sklosowska-Curie Fellowship to perform her research at LCMD.
October 2015 Piotr’s communication on a new class of meta-GGA functionals is amongst the most read JCP articles of the year 2015.
October 2015 Our Chemical Science article on the volcano plots is a hot article.

 

Latest Publications

Enhanced inverted singlet-triplet gaps in azaphenalenes and non-alternant hydrocarbons

M. H. Garner; J. T. Blaskovits; C. Corminboeuf 

Chemical Communications. 2024-01-15. Vol. 60, num. 15, p. 2070-2073. DOI : 10.1039/d3cc05747j.

Encoding quantum-chemical knowledge into machine-learning models of complex molecular properties

K. Briling / A-C. Corminboeuf (Dir.)  

Lausanne, EPFL, 2024. 

Data-Driven Discovery of Organic Electronic Materials Enabled by Hybrid Top-Down/Bottom-Up Design

J. T. Blaskovits; R. Laplaza; S. Vela; C. Corminboeuf 

Advanced Materials. 2023-11-23. DOI : 10.1002/adma.202305602.

Double-bond delocalization in non-alternant hydrocarbons induces inverted singlet-triplet gaps

M. H. Garner; J. T. Blaskovits; C. Corminboeuf 

Chemical Science. 2023-10-04. Vol. 14, num. 38, p. 10458-10466. DOI : 10.1039/d3sc03409g.

Double-bond delocalization in non-alternant hydrocarbons induces inverted singlet-triplet gaps

M. H. Garner; J. T. Blaskovits; C. Corminboeuf 

Chemical Science. 2023-09-07. DOI : 10.1039/d3sc03409.

The fundamental relation between electrohelicity and molecular optical activity

M. H. Garner; C. Corminboeuf 

Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. 2023-05-23. DOI : 10.1039/d3cp01343j.

Genetic Algorithms for the Discovery of Homogeneous Catalysts

S. Gallarati; P. van Gerwen; A. A. Schöpfer; R. Laplaza Solanas; A-C. Corminboeuf 

Chimia. 2023-02-22. Vol. 77, num. 1/2, p. 39-47. DOI : 10.2533/chimia.2023.39.

Symmetry-Induced Singlet-Triplet Inversions in Non-Alternant Hydrocarbons

J. T. Blaskovits; M. H. Garner; A-C. Corminboeuf 

Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 2023-02-14. Vol. 62, num. 15, p. e202218156. DOI : 10.1002/anie.202218156.