The Beratan Lab starts the year 2026 with the return of our beloved Nathan Wong! Nathan returned to Durham after his one-year expedition to the Pacific Northwest National Lab. Now, with the return of Nathan and Zina Charyshnikova last November, the Beratan Lab is now operating in full capacity under a complete basis set (except Hassan, who is still out for his brother’s wedding).
Photo Taken by Bochu Wang, FFSC Room 5301, January 12th, 2026
On Saturday, December 13th, with the gratitude from Ms. Louise Pariser, the Beratan Lab was invited to the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh to see the Nutcracker Suite ballet. The group was also invited to the backstage area during the intermission for a tour given by one of the coordinators of the Carolina Ballet. During the tour, he introduced how Carolina Ballet incorporated originally-designed magic tricks into the choreography of this classic Russian Ballet and answered questions about the pain one endures to become a ballet dancer, and I, for the first time ever in my life, witnessed a ballet dancer walking not on their toes! We present our utmost appreciation to Ms. Pariser for her invitation and a huge shout-out to all the dancers from the Carolina Ballet for their flawless and beautiful performance that brings magic to this winter.
Photo Taken by Ms. Louise Pariser, Rayleigh Memorial Auditorium, December 13th, 2025
On Thursday, November 13th, Xiao Huang had a piano performance at the Duke Music Area Recital, where he presented Italian Concerto BWV 971, Movement 1, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. With outstanding skills, professionalism, and elegance, his performance of this classic Baroque masterpiece ended in a breakout of applause and cheers around the hall. Here is the link to Xiao’s full performance that night: https://youtu.be/pZMG3e7AqF0.
Photos Taken by YouHyun Nam, Nelson Music Room, November 13th, 2025
From October 23rd to 26th, Duke Players, a student organization from the Department of Theater Studies, presented the student-produced play “The Bacchae” by Euripides at Brody Theater, where Cadmus Chen from the Beratan Lab delivered a tear-jerking performance as Cadmus, the father of Agave in this classic Greek tragedy. “Nice performance. Very vivid too,” says Chenao Zhang, an audience member from the Fitzgerald Lab, “although I couldn’t understand most of the lines. I asked ChatGPT about the plots and characters’ relationships beforehand to kind of understand what’s going on overall.” Cadmus replied that the director wants a little bit of “ancient style”, so the wording might be slightly obscure. For more details and tickets for potential future events, please see the links to the official website of the event: https://theaterstudies.duke.edu/bacchae and Duke Players’s official Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/duke.players/. The recording of the entire show can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/LAAd2gFuN0k.
Photos taken at the Brody Theater on East Campus, October 26th, 2025
On October 9th and 10th, Dr. David N. Beratan delivered a series of talks as the featured 2025 Pariser-Parr Lecturer at UNC-Chapel Hill, in honor of Dr. Rudolph Pariser and Professor Robert Parr for their friendship and legacy in theoretical chemistry. Dr. Beratan presented a general lecture on Adventures in Biological Electron Transfer Theory on the first day and a specialized talk on Electron Bifurcation Theory on the second. During the event, he cherished his memory of the good old days and reflected on his scientific journey, its intersection with Pariser and Parr, as well as the advancements and challenges along the way. I hereby, on behalf of the Beratan Lab, present our most sincere appreciation to the Pariser and Parr families, and especially Ms. Louise Pariser, for giving us this wonderful opportunity to pay tribute to the two great scientists. For more details, please see the links to the official website of this event: https://chem.unc.edu/pariser-parr-lectureship/ and the report by UNC-Chapel Hill Chemistry Communication: https://chem.unc.edu/news/2025-pariser-parr-lectureship-to-feature-duke-chemist-david-n-beratan/.
Photos taken at Murrey Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill, October 9th, 2025
The formation of new products always comes after the transition state! On August 28, the Beratan Lab celebrated its own transition state to pay tributes to the departures of Dr. Jonathan Schultz, Dr. Hanggai Nuomin, and Dr. Kiriko Terai, as well as to welcome the return of Dr. Aline Bozzi and other new arrivals, joined by old friends from the lab and new friends around the world. Legacy passed down, and new adventures await!
Photo taken at Pizzeria Mercato in Carrboro, August 28th, 2025
On August 26, His Excellency the Minister of #Industry_and_Mineral_Resources, Eng. Bandar Al-khorayef of Saudi Arabia visited Duke University as a part of his trip to the Research Triangle Park. His excellency had an impactful discussion with the passionate Saudi international students at Duke, including Hassan Alkhunaizi from the Beratan Lab! They exchanged new ideas and insights about supporting the academic pursuits of Saudi scholars abroad. During the meeting, Hassan raised an interesting question about forming potential research collaboration with Saudi Arabia and received positive and encouraging response from the Minister. The day concluded in delight with a dinner later that night which Hassan helped organized. Please see the official report from Saudi Press Agency at https://www.spa.gov.sa/en/N2386319.
Photo taken by the delegation of the ministry on August 26th, 2025 at Duke University
The end of a journey is the beginning of another! Congratulations to Dr. Jonathan Schultz for getting his position as an assistant professor at North Carolina Central University. (Of course, I am not sad at all about the fact that he is leaving his beloved Beratan Lab.)
Photos taken by Kiriko Terai on August 5th, 2025, at FFSC 5301
Cheers to the two representatives of Beratan Lab, Kiriko Terai and Andrew Smith, at the Three Minute Thesis Competition with their fabulous talks on electron bifurcation and bacterial nanowires. After a highly competitive first round, Kiriko advanced to the final round as the only competitor from the Chemistry Department and gave another amazing speech that was voted by the audience from the Beratan group to be the best in the final round. Here is the link to the full talk from Kiriko during the final round of the competition: https://youtu.be/AVjWVs5iQ-c?si=dxr1T0l4Cx6CLrr9
Photos taken by Emily Wang and Bochu Wang during Kiriko’s and Andrew’s Three-Minute Thesis Competition on August 4th (left, bottom) and July 10th (top)
Two more doctors in one week from the Beratan Lab! After a very productive week and years of hard work, two PhD candidates, Hanggai Nuomin and Kiriko Terai, successfully defended their theses and became Dr. Hanggai Nuomin and Dr. Kiriko Terai. Best of luck with your future endeavour, and best of luck with Kiriko’s recently proposed marriage too!
Photos taken one week after the defenses during the group dinner party at Okja in Cary, July 18th, 2025
After an intense and breathtaking battle, Emily Wang defeated Kiriko Terai in a table tennis contest during the Friday Departmental Happy Hour with a close score of 11:9. Way to go!
Photo taken in front of FFSC, June 27th, 2025
We are thrilled to share that we had a successful TriMolS symposium on May 3, 2025! Thank you to Andrew, Hassan, and Kiriko for leading the organization!
Photos taken during TriMolS Symposium at UNC Chapel Hill, May 3rd, 2025
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Kelsey Parker, who began her position as a computational chemist at PsiQuantum in May 2025!
Photos taken on the top of Duke Chapel, May 2nd, 2025, by Jonathan Schultz
Congratulations to Dr. Niven Singh who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on March 28, 2025!
Mr. Nathan Wong of the Beratan Lab has been awarded the prestigious DOE SCGSR award! Way to go Nathan!
Ms. Zina Charyshnikova has been awarded the Duke Nanosciences Program Fellowship! Great job Zina!
We’re thrilled to share that our mentor, Professor David N. Beratan, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (April 30, 2024)!
We’re delighted to share that Ben Rousseau, a former member of our group, has earned his Ph.D. from Yale, where he worked in the group of Sharon Hammes-Schiffer. His thesis, Nuclear Quantum Effects and Proton Transfer Mechanisms in Molecular and Solid-Liquid Interface Systems, was defended on February 22, 2024. Ben has now begun a postdoc in the group of James Shee at Rice University, focusing on Quantum Monte Carlo methods to develop environmentally important materials. Congratulations, Dr. Rousseau!
We are thrilled to share that our very own mentor Professor David N. Beratan has been honored with the 2024 Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics! This prestigious award recognizes Prof. Beratan for his pioneering contributions to our understanding of biological electron transfer and bioenergetics. His innovative research and mentorship have profoundly influenced both the field and us as his students. Congratulations, Prof. Beratan, on this well-deserved accolade (photo credit to EPNAC.com)!
We are proud to announce that Kiriko has been granted the prestigious Katherine Goodman Stern Fellowship, which will support her innovative research for the next year (Apr. 18, 2024)!
Kiriko had the distinguished honor of meeting with the Prime Minister of Japan! See the news reports 1 and 2 (Apr. 12, 2024).
Big congratulations to Andrew on receiving the NSF Graduate Fellowship! This esteemed fellowship will support his ongoing research endeavors and academic development (Apr. 8, 2024)!
Record Achievement: Four Students Passed Preliminary Exams – This spring, we achieved a new milestone with four of our students advancing from their preliminary exams! Congrats to Andrew, Hassan, Nathan, and Xiao (Apr. 2024)!
Explore stunning photos from our viewing of the recent solar eclipse on our website. The event offered a breathtaking experience that brought our team together in awe. Special thanks to Xiao for these incredible photographs (Apr. 8, 2024)!
Major Upgrade to Our Computer Cluster – We are thrilled to announce a significant upgrade to our computer cluster, with the addition of over 1000 CPUs ! Thank you, Tomasz! (Apr. 1 2024)!
The latest photo from our recent group lunch. It’s a wonderful opportunity to see our team in a more relaxed setting, sharing food and laughter (Feb.22 2023)
Mr. Hassan Alkhunaizi represented our group at the Chemistry Research Symposium yesterday, presenting his research on Dexter energy transfer. See the photo below! Thanks Nathan for the photo!
Niven Singh and Kiriko Terai attended the 11th International Conference on Biological Physics. During the event, Niven was recognized with the Best Poster Award! Congratulations!
Congratulations to Mr. Hanggai Nuomin for receiving a Marcus Hobbs Fellowship from the Department of Chemistry at Duke for fall, 2022.
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Sutirtha Chowdhury who began as a member of the technical staff at Intel Corporation in fall 2022.
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Nicholas Polizzi who began as an Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the summer of 2022.
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Jonathon Yuly who began as a Lewis-Siglar Fellow at Princeton University in Fall 2022.
Congratulations to Mr. Hanggai Nuomin for receiving a Duke Nanosciences Program Fellowship for fall, 2022.
Congratulations to Ms. Kiriko Terai for receiving a Duke Nanosciences Program Fellowship for spring, 2022.
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Jesús Valdiviezo who began a Computing Innovation Fellowship at University of California, Berkeley in Fall 2021.
Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Shuming Bai who began as an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in summer 2021.
Congratulations to Mr. Jesús Valdiviezo, who received a Bass teaching fellowship to assist with teaching of quantum dynamics in Fall 2020 and a Kathleen Zielik Fellowship from Chemistry for spring 2021.
Congratulations to Mr. Jonathon Yuly, who received a Graduate Program in Nanosciences Fellowship for Spring 2021 and a Charles Townes/Perkins-Elmer Fellowship from the Department of Physics at Duke for the Fall 2019 semester.
After 20 years of in person joint Thanksgiving parties with the Yang group, we had to resort to a Zoom-based get together this year, ending with a little live music!
Congratulation to Professor Agostino Migliore, who is moving from his Research Assistant Professor position in Chemistry at Duke to an appointment beginning this fall 2020 at the University of Padova, Italy, following several extremely productive years at Duke!
Thanks to Mr. Jesús Valdiviezo and Mr. Jonathon Yuly for organizing a Spring 2020 course on Computational Chemistry. This hand-on course was warmly received by a large group of graduate students from across the department and represented a major enhancement in our graduate offerings.
Congratulations to our newest Ph.D., Dr. Darius Teo, who was among the first Duke graduate students to perform a thesis defense over Zoom this spring! Following a brief but productive post-doctoral appointment at Duke, Darius moved to a CIHR post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary, Canada in July 2020.
Congratulations to Mr. John McNeil who graduated with distinction in Chemistry at Duke in 2020, following research in our group on quantum dynamics.
Congratulation to one of our new graduate student, Ms. Kiriko Terai, for receiving a JASSO Fellowship from Japan to support her studies at Duke.
Congratulations to Ms. Xi Li, a visiting Duke undergraduate who worked with us in 2018, on her admission to graduate school. She will begin her graduate studies in Chemistry at UCLA.
Congratulations to group undergrad alum, Ms. Elizabeth Smithwick on her upcoming Duke graduation (spring, 2019), and best wishes for her future graduate studies at the University of Minnesota!
Congratulations to group undergrad alum, Mr. Benjamin Rousseau, who landed an NSF pre-doctoral fellowship (spring, 2019) in support of his ongoing Ph.D. studies at Yale University!
Congratulations to Dr. Ye Jin who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on May 3, 2019! Ye will begin a job with a major financial firm this summer.
Congratulations to Mr. Darius Teo on his Blue Waters Research Fellowship!
Congratulations to Dr. Ellie Zheng who successfully defended her Ph.D thesis on March 15, 2019! Ellie will begin a teaching post-doctoral appointment at Duke-Kunshan this summer.
Congratulations to Dr. Zheng Ma who successfully defended his Ph.D thesis on January 31, 2018! Zheng is now working in a high-tech job in the New York region.
Congratulations to Dr. Ruibin Liu who successfully defended his Ph.D thesis on April 2, 2018! Ruibin is now a post-doctoral associate at University of Maryland – Baltimore County.
Congratulations to Dr. Chaoren Liu who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on March 3, 2017! Chaoren will take on a high-tech job in the Big Apple this spring.
Congratulations to Dr. Yuqi (Gary) Zhang on his successful Ph.D. defense! Gary will be moving to a post-doctoral positon at The Scripps Research Institute this winter.
Thanks to Dr. Tomasz Janowski for implementing a major expansion of our computer cluster, fall 2016!
Congratulations to Nick Polizzi, our summer 2016 Ph.D. graduate who has just begun a post-doc at UCSF!
Congratulations to our newest Ph.D. graduates, Drs. Chetan Rupakheti and Jiaxing Lin! Both successfully defended their theses in November. In January, Chetan will head to a post-doctoral position and Jiaxing will take up a staff position in Duke’s Cancer Institute.
A description of our quantum dynamics Computable Document Format (CDF) notebooks for teaching key principles of quantum dynamics “with the dynamics” just appeared in J. Chem. Ed.: N.F. Polizzi and D.N. Beratan, “Open-access, interactive exploration for teaching and learning quantum dynamics,” J. Chem. Ed., ASAP (2015), DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00662
Progress on our strategy to develop property-biased diverse molecular libraries is described in the new publication: C. Rupakheti, A.M. Virshup, W. Yang, D.N. Beratan, “A Strategy to Discover Diverse Optimal Molecules in the Small Molecule Universe,” J. Chem. Inf. Model., 55, 529-537 (2015).
Progress on the charge transfer of branched DNA structures is described in our recent publication: Y. Zhang, R. Young, A. Thazhathveetil, A. Singh, C. Liu, Y, Berlin, F. Grozema, F.D. Lewis, M.A. Ratner, N. Renaud, K. Siriwong, A. Voityuk, M.R. Wasielewski, D.N. Beratan, “Conformationally Gated Charge Transfer in DNA Three-Way Junctions,” J. Chem. Phys. Lett., 6, 2434-2438 (2015).
A collaborative commentary article from our group and the Therien group just appeared in PNAS. It analyzes a new idea for deactivating potentially damaging oxidizing species in proteins: N.F. Polizzi, A. Migliore, M.J. Therien, and D.N. Beratan, “Defusing redox bombs?” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 112, 10821-10822 (2015).
Thousands of people were killed by a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal on April 25. There is widespread devastation across Nepal, and people are awaiting much needed basic aid. The news articles below list local and international organizations that are soliciting donations for relief efforts: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/world/asia/where-to-donate-for-nepal.html?_r=0 and http://nepalitimes.com/page/nepal-earthquake-2015-relief
Our description of molecular sensing strategies based on quantum dynamics just appeared: PNAS 112, E2419-E2428 (2015).
Our 2015 review on charge transfer in dynamical biosystems appeared online in Accounts of Chemical Research and was designated an ACS “Editors’ Choice.” It is available for free download: Acc. Chem. Res., 48, 474-481 (2015).
Congratulations to Aaron Virshup who is taking a position at Autodesk Research on Monday October 13! We will miss you Aaron!
Welcome Tyler Pasquinelli!! Melissa (former post-doc and now faculty member at NC State) and Sean greeted their new son in late August. Congratulations!! (Durhamites: Can you guess why he’s named Tyler?)
First Annual In Silico Drug Discovery Conference will be held at the NC Biotech Center in Durham – December 3-4, 2014 – co-organized by former post-doc Shahar Keinan.
Our “Flickering Resonance” paper in PNAS was named an “Editors’ Choice” in Science magazine on August 1, 2014. Please see: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current#EditorsChoice
Congratulations to Lianjun (Ellie) Zheng on her receiving a Graduate Program in Nanosciences Fellowship for the Fall 2014 semester!! Way to go Ellie!
We are releasing our Computable Document Format interactive textbook “Quantum Dynamics … with the Dynamics!” Please see: http://chem.duke.edu/labs/beratan/teaching for the download. Additional chapters will be posted in the coming months.
Dr. Rocky Goldsmith (one of our early Duke PhDs) will be heading up to Canada after 8 years at the US-EPA in Research Triangle, NC. Rocky has accepted a position as an Application Scientist at Chemical Computing Group in Montreal (the creators of MOE, among other things). Best wishes Rocky!
Congratulations to Prof. Michael Galperin, former post-doc in the group, who was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego!
Chaoren Liu and Gary Zheng have received 2014-15 J.F. Bonk and C. Bradsher Fellowships from the Department of Chemistry. Congratulations Chaoren and Gary!!
Dr. Agostino Migliore was appointed Assistant Research Professor of Chemistry at Duke. Congratulations Agostino!!
Congratulations to Prof. Dequan Xiao, former graduate student in the group, who began his independent career at the University of New Haven in Fall 2013.
Our new “flckering resonance” theory for biological electron transfer has just appeared online in PNAS
