If you’ve been avidly following the progress of CORENET, you may have realised who’s in the CORE of the research of this NET. So it’s time to learn a bit more about the young researchers that are doing a deep labour on the project through the launch of short exclusive interviews with them.

Meet the #CORENETresearchers: Katja-Sophia Csizi

Katja-Sophia joined IBM Research Zürich as a Postdoctoral researcher in August 2023. Her work in CORENET focuses on the deployment of complex chemical reaction networks (CRNs) for chemical computing applications. She studied chemistry with a focus on Computational Quantum Chemistry at Freie Universität Berlin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, and Oxford University and obtained her PhD in Quantum Chemistry in 2023 from ETH Zürich under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Markus Reiher with the title “Autonomous Construction of Quantum Hybrid Models for Biochemical Applications”. Her doctoral work focused on the automated exploration of chemical reactions and reaction networks in nanoscopic structures via black-box constructible quantum-classical hybrid models.

How did you get into this field of research?

I studied chemistry in Berlin, Munich and Oxford. Very early, I was fascinated by the predictive power of computational chemistry and how it can be coupled to experiments. For my PhD, I moved to ETH Zurich, where I worked on the automated exploration of chemical reactions in nanoscale structures. During that time, I learned about the fascinating complexity that these networks offer, and I am very excited to now learn more about potential applications.

Why did you apply for a researcher position with CORENET?

To me, Corenet is an extremely innovative and ambitious project that thinks of chemistry from a completely different perspective. What I especially like is that we do not only utilize these complex networks for an actual, real-world computing application, but at the same time get the chance to better understand and learn something about the underlying chemistry, which is very versatile, but challenging to describe. I am therefore very pleased that my background in chemistry, but also in programming and software development can complement the team.

What are your aspirations for your research?

I enjoy learning something new every day, and to better understand chemistry at an atomistic level.

What do you think you bring to the CORENET team besides your expertise?

I think I can work and integrate well in a team, and I can think creatively when unexpected obstacles arise.

What are the soft/hard skills which make you good at CORENET tasks?

I have a solid background in general chemistry, but I also gained a lot of experience in describing complex chemical reaction networks theoretically during my PhD. Also, I am skilled in programming and software development, which helps me to better link the wet chemistry operated inside our reactor to the digital computing problem.

Let’s leave science aside, what other hobbies do you have?

I love reading and learning languages. Currently, I try to improve my Russian and Hebrew. Also, I enjoy running, playing tennis and golf, and traveling.

Education

BSc. (FU Berlin) and MSc. (LMU Munich) In Chemistry

PhD in Computational Quantum Chemistry from ETH Zürich

Interests

Computational chemistry, chemical computing, catalysis, cheminformatics, machine learning, reservoir computing

Contact

Linkedin and X

“It is easier and far more effective to reach an ambitious goal if you approach it from different perspectives. That’s why Corenet is such a fascinating and promising collaboration.”