Anastassia is Charles W. Clifford Jr. Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and professor of Materials Science and Engineering. She obtained her B.S./M.S. degree with highest honors from Saratov State University (Russia), in 2000, and her Ph.D. in Theoretical Physical Chemistry from Utah State University, in 2005. She was a Postdoctoral Associate, and then an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. Anastassia joined the Faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, and CNSI in 2010. She is a recipient of numerous awards, such as NSF CAREER Award, Sloan Fellowship 2013, DARPA Young Faculty Award 2011, Fulbright Fellowship 2016, ACS WCC Rising Star Award 2016, 2020 ACS Phys Early Career Award in Theoretical Chemistry, 2021 Max Planck-Humboldt medal, as well as UCLA undergraduate research mentorship award 2018, and 2019 distinguished teaching award (the highest honor for teaching given in UCLA). In 2024 she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Tel: +1 (310) 825-3769
Email: alexandrova@g.ucla.edu
Postdoctoral Scientists
Dr. Yong Rui Poh
Yong Rui obtained his Ph.D. from UCSD, group of Prof. Joel Yuen-Zhou.
Project: Topological catalysis, non-equilibrium effects in catalysis.
Email: ypoh@g.ucla.edu
Graduate Students
Will Laderer, NSF-UCLA Quantum Science and Engineering Fellow
Will got his B.S. degree in Stony Brook University.
Project: Functional quantum materials.
Email: wladerer@g.ucla.edu
Taras Khvorost, NSF-UCLA Quantum Science and Engineering Fellow
Taras got his B.S. degree in St. Petersburg State University, and his M.S. in ITMO University – group of Evgeny Pidko.
Project: Chemistry of QIS.
Email: khvorost@g.ucla.edu
Pujan Ajmera, NSF-UCLA Quantum Science and Engineering Fellow
Pujan got his B.S. degree in the University of Michigan.
Project: Role of electric and magnetic fields in governing quantum processes in biology.
Email: pujanajmera1@g.ucla.edu
Shawn Chiu
Shawn got his B.S. degree in Columbia University.
Project: Reactive CO2 capture.
Email: schiu4791@g.ucla.edu
Anubhav Goswami
Anubhav got his B.S. degree in IISc Bengaluru, India.
Project: Electric fields in natural and artificial enzymes
Email: ganubhav@g.ucla.edu
Daniel Guion
Daniel got his B.S. degree in the University of Washington, and spent a few years in biotech industry before joining UCLA.
Project: Electric fields across enzyme classes
Email: danielguion@g.ucla.edu
Ferdawss Ihiri, NSF Fellow
Ferdawss got her B.S. degree in the College of Wooster, majoring in chemistry and minoring in computer science. She is jointly supervised by Prof. Miguel Garcia-Garibay.
Project: ML for solid state reactivity
Email: ihiriferdawss@chem.ucla.edu
Junwei He
Junwei got his B.S. degree from Peking University in China. He spent some time in Rice University, group of Prof. Boris Yakobson.
Project: Topological materials interfaces for catalysis and electronic devices
Email: jwhe0522@g.ucla.edu
Avital Isakov
Avital got her B.S. degree from Washington University in Ls. Louis, where she did undergraduate research with Prof. Robert Wexler. She also did an internship in NREL workin with Dr. Mai-Anh Ha.
Project: Fluxionality in thermal catalysis
Email: aisakov@g.ucla.edu
Yu Wei
Yu got her B.S. degree from Shandong Normal University, and her M.S. from Beijing Normal University and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where she worked under the supervision of Dr. Jia Zhu.
Project: Thermal effects in electrocatalysis and corrosion
Email: yuwei99@g.ucla.edu
Arwen Cai, NSERC Postgraduate Scholar
Arwen obtained their B.S. in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia, where they did undergraduate research with Prof. Eva Nichols. They are jointly supervised with Prof. Paula Diaconescu.
Project: Machine learning for polymerisation catalysis
Email: arwenyingcai@g.ucla.edu
Jake Erbez
Jake obtained his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis, where he did research with Prof. Michael Toney.
Project: Degradation of heterogeneous catalysts
Email: erbezjake@gmail.com
Anthony Wang
Anthony obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, where he did undergraduate research with Prof. Filipp Furche.
Project: Molecular qubits
Email: anthojw4@g.ucla.edu
Henry Shavel
Henry obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from Northwestern University, where he did undergraduate research with Prof. Christian Malapit.
Project: Degradation of heterogeneous catalysts
Email: henryshavel@g.ucla.edu
Undergraduate Students
Giacomo Berti
Project: Electric fields in enzymes
Group Alumni
Dr. Gwen Weng (postdoc, 2025) → Professor in University of Macau, China
Pavel Rublev (Ph.D., 2025) → Scientist in ITMO, St. Petersburg, Russia
Winston Gee (Ph.D., 2025)
Dr. Yulan Han (postdoc, 2025) → Postdoc, University of Hong Kong
Dr. Yonghyuk Lee (postdoc, 2025) → Professor in Dongguk University, South Korea
Ashley Petersen (M.S., 2025)
Hiran Jayasekara (B.S., 2025) → PhD student in University of Chicago
Dr. Shobhit Chaturvedi (Postdoc 2022-2025) → Postdoc in ETH Zurich, group of Marcus Reiher
Elise Tran (B.S., 2024) → Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam → Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program, Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, & Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)
Sophia Kogan (B.S., 2026) → Ph.D. student UCSB
Robert Lavroff (Ph.D. 2025) → PsyQuantum
Dr. Harry Morgan (postdoc, 2024) → Professor in the University of Manchester, UK
Zisheng Zhang (Ph.D. 2024) → Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellow → Professor in Stanford
Santiago Vargas (Ph.D. 2024) → Hoffman Postdoctoral Fellow in Berkeley
Claire Dickerson (Ph.D. 2024) → Scientist at HRL
Patricia Poths (Ph.D. 2023) → Humboldt Fellow at Fritz-Haber Institute, Berlin, Germany, group of Karsten Reuter → Group leader at Fritz-Haber Institute, Berlin.
Nathaniel Johnston (M.S. 2023) → Notre Dame Girls High School, chemistry teacher
Cecilia Chang (M.S. 2023)
Tom Hong (B.S. 2023) → Ph.D. student in applied math at Yale University.
Edison Cummings (B.S. 2023, depatmental honors) → Ph.D. student in the University of Washington.
Samuel Greenbank (exchange undergraduate student, 2023) → back to U.Manchester, UK, to complete his B.S.
Jack Fulller (Ph.D. 2021) → Postdoc at PNNL.
Dr. Daniel Bim (postdoc, 2018-2020) → Professor in Dept. of Physical Chemistry at UCT Prague.
Matthew Hennefarth (B.S. 2020, Staff Scientist 2020-2021) → graduate student at University of Chicago, group of Laura Gagliardi → PsyQuantum.
Kirill Shumilov (B.S. 2020, M.S. 2021) → graduate student at University of Washington, group of Xiaosong Li.
David Reilley (Ph.D. 2021) → engineer at QSimulate.
Borna Zandkarimi (Ph.D. 2020) → Postdoc at UCSD, group of Joel Yuen → Amgen → PsyQuantum.
Dr. Han Guo (postdoc, 2018-2020) → engineer in pharma, Beijing, China.
Dr. Julen Munarriz (postdoc, 2019-2020) → Professor in University of Oviedo, Spain.
Dr. Sandra Brown (Postdoc, 2019-2020) → Professor in Harvey Mudd College.
Hang Yin (B.S. 2019) → graduate student at UCSD.
Huanchen Zhai (Ph.D. 2019) → Postdoc in Caltech, group of Garnet Chan.
Addis Fuhr (Ph.D. 2019, co-advised with Philippe Sautet and Victor Klimov) → MITRE → Staff Scientist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Jiyuan Liu (CSC Scholar, 2016-2018) → continued his Ph.D. research in East China Institute of Science and Technology in Shanghai.
PJ Robinson (BS 2018) → PhD student in Columbia University, group of David Reichman → Postdoc in Harvard, group of Jonhoo Lee.
Dr. Elisa Jimenez-Izal (Postdoc 2014-2018) → Ikerbasque Fellow → Professor, DIPC, Donostia, Basque Country, Spain.
Amanda Morgenstern (co-supervised student from Colorado School of Mines; advisor – Mark Eberhart; Ph.D. 2017) → Professor in Colorado University, Colorado Springs.
Daniel Hartfield (MS 2017) → Chadwick School teacher of chemistry.
Mai-Anh Ha (PhD 2017) → Directors Postdoctoral Fellow, and then staff scientist in NREL.
Michael Nechay (PhD 2017) → Data Scientist at Dell.
Caleb Huang (undergraduate reseracher) → post-BS program at NIH → M.D.-Ph.D. University of Texas Medical Branch.
Zhihao Cui (CSST Summer student 2016) → PhD student in Caltech, group of Garnet Chan → Postdoc, Columbia → Professor, UC Irvine
Raymond Wang (CSST Summer student 2015) → graduate student in Northwestern University, group of Toru Shiozaki.
Crystal Valdez (PhD 2015) → Postdoc in Stanford, group of Prof. Ed Solomon → Pfizer.
Anjan Nandula (MS 2015) → engineer in WorldQuant.
Dr. Jonny Dadras (Postdoc, 2012-2014) → Postdoc in Caltech, group of William Goddard.
Dr. Tony Smith (Postdoc jointly with Prof. Radu, UCLA Medical School, 2012-2014) → data scientist in Teradata → Google.
Dr. Jin Zhang (Postdoc, 2010-2013) → Engineer in Google.
Lu Shen (MS 2014) → PhD student in UCLA, Physics.
Dr. Manuel Sparta (Postdoc, 2010-2012) → Postdoc at Max Planck Institute, Mulheim an der Ruhr, group of Frank Neese.
Mioy Huynh (B.S. 2012, URFP and CARE Research Fellow, 2010-2012) → Ph.D. student in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, group of Sharon Hammes-Schieffer → lecturer of chemistry at Yale University → Professor at Clarmont College.
Diana Yu (B.S. 2012, Kivelson Fellow, 2011-2012) → Ph.D. student in UC Merced → faculty in Douglas College, BC, Canada.
Natalya Burmistrova (visiting scholar, 2012) → Professor in Saratov University, Russia.
Alina Sergeeva (visiting graduate student, 2012) → Postdoctoal Associate at Columbia University.