On October 8th, Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth welcomed its newest faculty member: Geoffroy Hautier, the Hodgson Family Associate Professor of Engineering. Hautier’s research focuses on computational materials discovery and design using atomistic modelling. His research group uses especially high-throughput, large scale computational screening to search for new materials of interest for a wide range of applications, from electronics to energy storage and production.

"Dartmouth is a special place combining excellence in teaching and research in a splendid environment. I am convinced that worldwide changing ideas and technologies emerge from environments favoring interactions between the different fields of engineering. Thayer offers a unique collaborative environment, and I can’t wait to start working with its students, faculty members, and staff,” said Hautier.

Most recently, Hautier was associate professor at the Université catholique de Louvain, and prior to that, he was a postdoctoral fellow with the National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) and at MIT. He holds his PhD in materials science and engineering from MIT, a masters degree in materials science and engineering from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, and a degree in engineering from École Centrale Paris.

Hautier is co-PI of the Materials Project, a freely accessible high-throughput computational database. Throughout his career, he has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers and has been cited more than 13,000 times. He received the Chemistry of Materials Reviewer Excellence Award in 2018 and 2019, named a finalist of the Rising Star in Computional Materials Science Prize for 2018, and in 2012 was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship.

"Computational materials science has become a major engineering tool. Techniques based on quantum mechanics that used to be focusing on fundamental understanding are now used to tackle concrete engineering and materials development problems,” said Hautier. “This is an exciting time for computational materials science, and I am excited to bring this booming field to Thayer’s research and teaching portfolio."