Berkeley Lab’s Kristin Persson Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Kristin Persson, a Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley and senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This prestigious organization, established in 1781, recently announced its 2026 cohort of 252 new members, honoring excellence in science, humanities, arts, and policy. Persson is renowned for leveraging high-performance computing to investigate the physics and chemistry of materials. She founded and directs the Materials Project, the world's most widely used open-access database for inorganic materials, which supports the development of advanced batteries, fuel cells, and data storage technologies through AI-powered design. Her leadership extends to her previous role as director of the Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab from 2020 to 2024. Persson holds numerous distinctions, including membership in the National Academy of Engineers and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and is a fellow of several major scientific societies. This election underscores her significant contributions to computational materials science and her impact on accelerating scientific discovery globally. The announcement highlights Berkeley Lab's ongoing commitment to groundbreaking research in energy and physical sciences.
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Berkeley Lab’s Kristin Persson Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Kristin Persson, a Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley and senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This prestigious organization, established in 1781, recently announced its 2026 cohort of 252 new members, honoring excellence in science, humanities, arts, and policy. Persson is renowned for leveraging high-performance computing to investigate the physics and chemistry of materials. She founded and directs the Materials Project, the world's most widely used open-access database for inorganic materials, which supports the development of advanced batteries, fuel cells, and data storage technologies through AI-powered design. Her leadership extends to her previous role as director of the Molecular Foundry at Berkeley Lab from 2020 to 2024. Persson holds numerous distinctions, including membership in the National Academy of Engineers and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and is a fellow of several major scientific societies. This election underscores her significant contributions to computational materials science and her impact on accelerating scientific discovery globally. The announcement highlights Berkeley Lab's ongoing commitment to groundbreaking research in energy and physical sciences.
Berkeley Lab News Center