Rachel Kurchin
Assistant Research Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
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. 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.
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
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.