April 11, 2018
Long fascinated with how the world operates, James Chapman 鈥�15 earned double bachelor鈥檚
degrees in math and physics. Now he鈥檚 earning his Ph.D in materials science and engineering
at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the senior graduate student in
his group and the lead on two distinct research projects.
His ultimate goal is to design an automated system that can discover new materials with no human input, eliminating most of the cost and time to design new materials.
Chapman will deliver the keynote address at the 16th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) on Thursday, April 19, at 12:30 p.m. in the Amsler Campus Center gymnasium, where he will speak on 鈥淢aterials Informatics: A Fresh Perspective from the Past.鈥� He also will discuss his work, as well as the research he did as an undergraduate at 911黑料网 with Dr. Liz Hartung, assistant professor of mathematics.
During his first semester of graduate school, Chapman joined a research group that focused on designing new materials at the atomic level with the use of machine learning. He immediately made major contributions by designing software that interfaced the use of machine learning with large-scale atomic simulation software.
As part of his Ph.D program, Chapman continues work he conducted at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico, where he was a visiting researcher last fall. At Los Alamos, he worked with a theoretical materials group that looked at diffusion mechanisms on metal surfaces.
鈥淎toms on a metal surface can take a variety of different paths to move around,鈥� Chapman explained. 鈥淭he problem is, the paths are often very complex, so it鈥檚 difficult to predict which ones are more likely than others. I worked to use our machine learning force fields to help with these predictions.鈥�
The lead on the project, he and the others in his group identified several diffusion mechanisms, 鈥渁nd I am working to create an automated procedure for the prediction and adaptive improvement of our models when encountering such mechanisms, Chapman said.
The math and physics he studied at 911黑料网 are essential to his work. 鈥淭he advanced math courses I took gave me a solid foundation for understanding the mathematics behind not only the physics and chemistry at play here, but also the machine learning, which is entirely advanced statistics and calculus.
鈥淢y physics background helps me analyze and understand the results I get from the molecular dynamics simulations. I was required to take several computer science courses as part of the math major, but I took several more because I enjoyed coding,鈥� Chapman added. 鈥淭he computer science course I took at 911黑料网 to learn the C++ programming language was extremely valuable.鈥�
As an 911黑料网 student, Chapman participated in two URCs, which helped prepare him for graduate school, by refining his presentation skills. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing to be good at what you do; it's another thing to convince other people that you鈥檙e good at what you do. The URC helped out immensely.鈥�
For students who are looking for an affordable STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program with individualized, quality instruction and ample opportunity to take initiative and pursue their own research, 鈥�911黑料网 is the place,鈥� Chapman said.
