Kristin Aslaug Persson is a Swedish/Icelandic American physicist and chemist. She was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1971, to Eva Haettner-Aurelius [1] and Einar Benedikt Olafsson.[2][3] She is the Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at University of California, Berkeley and a faculty senior staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[4] Between 2020-2024, she served as the director of the Molecular Foundry,[5] a national user facility managed by the US Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Persson is the director and founder of the Materials Project,[6] a multi-national effort to compute the properties of all inorganic materials. Her research group[7] focuses on the data-driven computational design and prediction of new materials for clean energy production and storage applications. In 2024, Persson was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in the class of Chemistry. [8]
The Persson Group is a research team that investigates materials' physics and chemistry using advanced computational methods and high-performance computing technology. Their work primarily supports clean energy production and storage applications.[11]
Persson leads the Materials Project,[6] a collaborative and international initiative that calculates the properties of all inorganic materials. This project provides researchers with free access to the data and related analysis algorithms. The main objective of the Materials Project is to significantly reduce the time required to develop new materials by focusing experimental efforts on compounds that show the most promise based on computational analysis.
Within the Persson Group, researchers apply their expertise in materials informatics and the high-throughput infrastructure of the Materials Project to design innovative materials for various clean energy applications. These materials include photocatalysts, multi-valent battery electrode materials, piezoelectrics, and electrolytes for advanced energy storage solutions.[12][13] Some of the group's past research has explored the properties of lithium-graphene, phase transformations in high-voltage nickel-manganese spinel, intercalation mechanisms in lithium excess materials, novel oxide photocatalysts, and the correlation between solvation structure and electrolyte performance in multi-valent electrolytes.[14]
2013: Director's Awards for Exceptional Achievement: Scientific[28]
She has also given named lectures such as the Cooper Lecture, West Virginia University [29], the Distinguished Su Lectureship, University of Rochester [30] and the Dresselhaus Memorial Lecture, IWAM 2023. [31]
