# Alán Aspuru-Guzik

Alán Aspuru-Guzik is a professor of chemistry, computer science, chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Toronto. His research group, the matter lab, studies quantum chemistry, AI for chemical and materials discovery, quantum computing and self-driving chemical. He is the co-founder of Kebotix, a company focused on automated chemical and material discovery. He previously cofounded Zapata Computing, which closed in 2024.

## Early life

Aspuru-Guzik was raised in Mexico City, Mexico. When he was in junior high, he represented Mexico at the International Chemistry Olympiad, after which his passion for science, particularly chemistry, grew.
Aspuru-Guzik had obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1999. In 2004, he was awarded a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He continued at Berkeley as a postdoctoral fellow between 2005 and 2006, working with Martin Head-Gordon.

## Career

From 2006 to 2010, Aspuru-Guzik was an assistant professor at Harvard University, before becoming associate professor in 2010, and professor in 2013. In 2018, Professor Aspuru-Guzik moved to the University of Toronto as a Canada 150 Research Chair.
From 2012 to 2014, Aspuru-Guzik had worked with Michael Aziz and Roy Gordon with funding from the United States Department of Energy to develop grid-scale, metal-free flow batteries. In 2016, Aspuru-Guzik had worked with Ryan Babbush, a quantum engineer at Google to develop a new algorithm for a quantum computer which will be able to detect various molecules, such as cholesterol. Generalizing such research efforts, he has substantially contributed to developing ideas of hybrid quantum classical algorithms.
Since 2018, he has given lectures at the Information Science and Technology Center, Colorado State University, Williams College, and the College of New Jersey.

## Business Endeavors and Zapata Computing Closure

Aspuru-Guzik co-founded Zapata Computing, a company initially positioned as a pioneer in quantum computing solutions for various industries. The company aimed to leverage quantum machine learning to accelerate the discovery of new materials and optimize complex tasks, such as predicting car race outcomes and enhancing aerodynamic design for energy efficiency in sectors like aviation and automotive. In 2023, Zapata Computing went public via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, listing on Nasdaq. In October 2024, Zapata announced it would cease operations.

## Publications record

According to Google Scholar, as of December 2024, Aspuru-Guzik has more than 80,000 citations and a H-index of 130 along with a I10-index of 448. Some of his most highly cited papers are:
* Duvenaud, David K; Maclaurin, Dougal; Iparraguirre, Jorge; Bombarell, Rafael; Hirzel, Timothy; Aspuru-Guzik, Alan; Adams, Ryan P (2015). "Convolutional Networks on Graphs for Learning Molecular Fingerprints". Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems. 28.
* Peruzzo, Alberto; McClean, Jarrod; Shadbolt, Peter; Yung, Man-Hong; Zhou, Xiao-Qi; Love, Peter J.; Aspuru-Guzik, Alán; O’Brien, Jeremy L. (2014-07-23). "A variational eigenvalue solver on a photonic quantum processor". Nature Communications. 5 (1): 4213.
* Gómez-Bombarelli, Rafael; Wei, Jennifer N.; Duvenaud, David; Hernández-Lobato, José Miguel; Sánchez-Lengeling, Benjamín; Sheberla, Dennis; Aguilera-Iparraguirre, Jorge; Hirzel, Timothy D.; Adams, Ryan P.; Aspuru-Guzik, Alán (2018-02-28). "Automatic Chemical Design Using a Data-Driven Continuous Representation of Molecules". ACS Central Science. 4 (2): 268–276.

## Honors and awards

Aspuru-Guzik is a 2009 Sloan Research Fellow, 2011 Big Think Delphi Fellow, 2012 Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2015 Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), and a 2017 Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was also 2017–2018 Invited Member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Advanced Materials and 2018 the Phi Beta Kappa society Visiting Scholar
In 2010 he was listed as Young Innovator Under 35 by the MIT Technology Review.
He has been recipient of several awards including:
* 2013 Computer World Data+ Award
* 2015 DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA)
* 2016 Per-Olov Löwdin Lecturer, Uppsala University
* 2019 Laird Lecture, Memorial University of Newfoundland
* 2023 John C. Polanyi Award, Chemical Institute of Canada
* 2023 Outstanding Researcher Award, Intel

## Political views

In 2018, Professor Aspuru-Guzik, concerned about the United States' political climate and the fallout from the 2016 United States presidential election, decided to leave his position at Harvard University. He described the situation as a "free-for-all" and likened it to warfare between different political parties. This discomfort led him to consider opportunities abroad in countries like Australia, Europe, and Canada. Eventually, he chose to join the University of Toronto, finding it particularly appealing due to its diverse population, progressive legislation related to human rights, the environment, and immigration.