Connor Coley

Connor Coley joined the Department of Chemical Engineering as an assistant professor in August 2020. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 2014, his M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019, where he was co-advised by Klavs Jensen and William Green. His research is in the area of machine learning and artificial intelligence for molecular and process discovery. He received the distinctions of being selected as a 2018 DARPA Riser and as one of the ACS C&EN’s Talented 12. His work centers around systematizing and accelerating small molecule discovery through new approaches to statistical inference that combine chemical data with domain expertise. The Coley lab focuses on addressing the fundamental challenges that have relegated autonomous discovery to proof-of-concept studies. He is applying AI-driven experimental platforms to the rational design and optimization of novel molecular agents, e.g., as protein binders, chemical sensors, antibiotics, and organocatalysts, in close partnership with researchers in chemical biology and synthetic chemistry.