The UNT College of Science is pleased to welcome Dr. Hsin-Yu Ko to the UNT Chemistry department as an Assistant Professor this fall. Dr. Ko's research focuses on the computational chemistry of large-scale condensed-phase systems with applications in Energy, Environmental, and Materials Sciences. He is working on building his research group during the upcoming semester and plans to begin teaching chemistry courses in Spring 2025.

"I am really excited about engaging my students in discussions that open new research perspectives and extract simple concepts from complex computer simulations," said Dr. Ko, who received his PhD from Princeton University.

As a free-software enthusiast, Dr. Ko hopes to bring new ideas in sustainable scientific software development to UNT.

"My research pursuit is to establish a computational framework to predict and discover chemical processes/reactions happening in condensed-phase environments," he said. "My work mainly involves developing efficient and automated computer algorithms in conjunction with machine-learning techniques to simulate quantum mechanical interatomic interactions and perform large-scale statistical mechanical sampling."

His professional long-term goal is to provide a digital twin of atomistic reality that the broad scientific community can easily and reliably use to predict chemical reactions for a given experimental setup.

Dr. Ko's research pursuits earned him a 2020 NERSC Early Career Award for High Impact Scientific Achievement. He said the welcoming community and support of talented colleagues influenced his decision to join UNT.

"A piece of inspiration I will never forget from my mentor: Be immersed in an environment with talented people and learn the best edges from each of them," said Dr. Ko.