Rachel Kurchin
Assistant Research Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Courtesy Appointment, Physics
Rachel Kurchin is a computational materials scientist who uses electronic structure theory, data science, and energy device modeling to fight the climate crisis. She is an active contributor to and developer of a variety of scientific codes, and serves as an editor of the Journal of Open Source Software. She received her BS in physics (intensive) from Yale in 2013, MPhil in materials science and metallurgy from Cambridge in 2014 (supported by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship), and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from MIT in 2019 (supported by a Blue Waters Graduate Fellowship).
From 2019-2022, she conducted postdoctoral research at CMU, supported by fellowships from CMU’s Manufacturing Futures Initiative and the Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI). She joined the CMU Materials Science and Engineering Department faculty in Fall 2022, where she is also a faculty affiliate of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and a member of the Pittsburgh Quantum Institute. In 2024, Kurchin was selected to participate in the inaugural class of MolSSI Faculty Fellows and received the Scientific Software Research Faculty Award from the Simons Foundation.
Behind the Researcher: Finding Common Threads
Education
2019 Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering, MIT
2014 M.Phil. Materials Science and Metallurgy, Cambridge
2013 B.S. Physics, Yale
Media mentions
Carnegie Bosch Institute
Meet CBI fellow Evan Spotte-Smith
Evan Spotte-Smith (they/them) will join CMU's Department of Chemical Engineering as a faculty member in the Fall of 2025. The CBI Fellowship will provide them with the resources to pursue research that will give them new skills–particularly in machine learning and catalysis–which sets them up for success in their faculty career.
Carnegie Bosch Institute
Learn about CBI faculty host Rachel Kurchin's work with CBI Fellow Evan Spotte-Smith
Rachel Kurchin is an assistant research professor in materials science and engineering, leading the Accelerated Computation of Materials for Energy (ACME) group. She and CBI fellow Evan Spotte-Smith are working on an alternative method to synthesize ammonia using electrochemistry, which could more easily leverage renewable energy and therefore be more environmentally friendly.
Materials Science and Engineering
Kurchin receives Simons Foundation award
Rachel Kurchin has received the Scientific Software Research Faculty Award from the Simons Foundation in support of her project, "Next-generation charged DFT calculations in Julia.”
MIT Technology Review
Kurchin discusses research retractions and blame
MSE’s Rachel Kurchin spoke with the MIT Technology Review concerning a number of retractions made by physics journals. Kurchin commented on the question of who should be blamed for the problematic articles that are published.
MoISSI
Kurchin selected as MoISSI Faculty Fellow
MSE’s Rachel Kurchin has been selected to participate in the inaugural class of Molecular Sciences Software Institute (MolSSI) Faculty Fellows. MolSSI is a multi-university collaboration designed to serve and enhance the software-development efforts of the field of computational molecular science.
CNET
Kurchin interviewed about how to choose the best solar power inverters
MSE’s Rachel Kurchin was interviewed in CNET on different kinds of solar inverters and how to choose the best one for you.
Materials Science and Engineering
New MSE faculty member combats climate crisis between triathlon training
Rachel Kurchin, assistant research professor, joins MSE from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at CMU where she was a postdoctoral researcher.