Kristin Aslaug Persson is a Swedish/Icelandic American physicist and chemist. She was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1971, to Eva Haettner-Aurelius and Einar Benedikt Olafsson. She is the Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and a faculty senior staff scientist at

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

. Between 2020 and 2024, she served as the director of the

Molecular Foundry The Molecular Foundry is a nanoscience user facility located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, and is one of five national Nanoscale Science Research Centers sponsored by the United States Department of Energy ...

, a national user facility managed by the US

Department of Energy A ministry of energy or department of energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-rela ...

. Persson is the director and founder of the

Materials Project The Materials Project is an open-access database offering material properties to accelerate the development of technology by predicting how new materials–both real and hypothetical–can be used. The project was established in 2011 with an empha ...

, a multi-national effort to compute the properties of all inorganic materials. Her research group focuses on the data-driven computational design and prediction of new materials for clean energy production and storage applications. In 2024, Persson was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

, in the class of Chemistry.

Education

Persson holds a Master of Science in engineering physics from

Lund Institute of Technology The Faculty of Engineering is one of the eight faculties at Lund University in Lund, Sweden, commonly called LTH (after its Swedish name ''Lunds Tekniska Högskola''). In 2022 LTH has about 1,500 employees and nearly 10,000 students, of which ...

in Sweden and completed a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from

Royal Institute of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology (), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technology and is Sweden's largest technical university. Since 2018, KTH consist ...

(KTH) in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

in 2001, under the supervision of Göran Grimvall. After her Ph.D., she joined the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

as a postdoctoral associate from 2001 to 2002. In 2002 she resigned her postdoctoral position to care full-time for her two daughters, born 2000 and 2002. She was rehired at MIT in 2004 and became a Research Associate in 2006. In 2008, Persson joined

as a staff scientist, and in 2015 she became a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the

Research

The Persson Group is a research team that investigates materials' physics and chemistry using advanced computational methods and high-performance computing technology. Their work primarily supports clean energy production and storage applications. Persson leads the Materials Project,⁣ a collaborative and international initiative that calculates the properties of all inorganic materials. This project provides researchers with free access to the data and related analysis algorithms. The main objective of the Materials Project is to significantly reduce the time required to develop new materials by focusing experimental efforts on compounds that show the most promise based on computational analysis. Within the Persson Group, researchers apply their expertise in

materials informatics Materials informatics is a field of study that applies the principles of informatics and data science to materials science and engineering to improve the understanding, use, selection, development, and discovery of materials. The term "materials inf ...

and the high-throughput infrastructure of the Materials Project to design innovative materials for various clean energy applications. These materials include photocatalysts, multi-valent battery electrode materials, piezoelectrics, and electrolytes for advanced energy storage solutions. Some of the group's past research has explored the properties of lithium-graphene, phase transformations in high-voltage nickel-manganese spinel, intercalation mechanisms in lithium excess materials, novel oxide photocatalysts, and the correlation between solvation structure and electrolyte performance in multi-valent electrolytes. The Persson group collaborates with other Materials Project contributors such as Gerbrand Ceder's group, Shyue Ping Ong's group, an
Anubhav Jain's group

Awards and honors

Persson's accomplishments in the area of data-driven materials design have been honored by the following awards and recognitions: * 2025: Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Recognized for pioneering data-driven materials design through the creation and stewardship of open materials databases and associated data-mining algorithms. * 2024: DOE SC Distinguished Scientist Fellow * 2024: Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, class of Chemistry * 2023: The Cyril Stanley Smith Award * 2023: MRS Fellow * 2022: AAAS Fellow * 2022: Secretary of Energy's Achievement Award * 2021: Fellow of the American Physical Society * 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024: Highly Cited Researcher, by Web of Science *2020: Falling Walls Award in Science and Innovation Management *2018: Kavli Fellow * 2018: Secretary of Energy's Achievement Award * 2017: TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow Award * 2013: Director's Awards for Exceptional Achievement: Scientific She has also given named lectures such as the Cooper Lecture, West Virginia University, the Distinguished Su Lectureship, University of Rochester and the Dresselhaus Memorial Lecture, IWAM 2023.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Persson, Kristin Aslaug University of California, Berkeley faculty 21st-century women physicists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the American Physical Society