Welcome to the AI3SD Intern Cohort for 2021. This year 15 interns join us for a 10 week programme between 28th June and 25th September 2021. The projects they are working on are interdisciplinary and include both cutting-edge AI and cutting-edge chemical discovery and demonstrate how and why they are relevant to AI3SD. The projects must be able to demonstrate valuable outputs both with respect to developing student skill and providing impact to AI3SD.

The Interns will be required to produce a poster for the AI3SD Summer Project Symposia 1st – 2nd September 2021, and they will take part in our Skills4Scientists programme that will run weekly across July and August whereby the interns will be given training in a range of research, technical and interpersonal skills, alongside informative career-based events.

András Vekassy

My name is András and I am a second year Chemistry student. I am from Budapest and working in research has been my dream since I started learning Chemistry. Although Physics was never my cup of tea, quantum mechanics fascinated me at University.

A field that provides a profound understanding of the world we live in, but never fails to raise more and more questions is very exciting. When I travelled home last March, Hamiltonian operators, Slater determinants and eigen-things were my company for the 14 days of quarantine. They stayed with me ever since, and it became clear that quantum chemistry is the area I intend to go into in the future. This summer I will be joining the Skylaris Research Group for a summer internship.

My project aims to improve the speed and precision of Density Functional Theory calculations in ONETEP, a program where computational cost scales linearly with the number of atoms. I am looking forward to further developing my coding skills in Python, learning about modern electronic structure theory and gaining insight into large-scale quantum chemistry calculations.


Anna Cotton

I am a second year BSc Chemistry student at Swansea University, and will be completing the AI3SD Summer Internship under the supervision of Dr Francisco Martin-Martinez. I have only been exposed to computational chemistry recently and have thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety of skills I have already gained.

Whilst at university, I have been a member of the tennis and cricket society, which has allowed me with time to relax away from my Chemistry degree! I am a qualified level 2 tennis coach, which means I coach children aged 4-18. I have completed my Gold DofE award, as well as Silver Ten Tors award, which has been a great achievement. I was also appointed as Head Girl of my school in my last year of sixth form, this was a great honour which allowed me to give back to the school which has given so much to me!

I am really looking forward to developing my chemistry and computational skills throughout this internship, and am very privileged to be given this opportunity.


Aspen Fenzl

I’m a Theoretical Physics student at the University of Sheffield, and am entering my third year of an integrated Masters. I’m particularly interested in quantum mechanics, which I’ve been avidly learning since first year. This fall I will be working in the university’s Quantum Information Laboratory for my third year research project, where I hope to begin my journey in quantum computing. 

I’ve been playing the flute for over 10 years, and am part of my university’s auditioned wind orchestra. I love to draw, explore new places, and am currently working towards my skydiving license. 

Throughout this project, I will be developing a machine learning method used to describe the space and time dependent dynamics of soft matter. I’m very thankful for this opportunity, and am excited to explore a wider range of real-world applications of computing in physics!


Gavin Man

I study Chemistry at Christ Church, University of Oxford and am an enthusiastic learner who enjoys taking on challenges and finding exciting but efficient solutions for both the user and the service provider. I am especially interested in the development of Renewable Energy and Artificial Intelligence and read as much as I can on this in my spare time. My ambition is to be part of the development of battery technology utilising the above technologies.

I am also passionate about improving access for all students in the UK. Utilising my roles and experiences both personally and professionally to help achieve this via my post as an outreach ambassador for the University of Oxford, executive member of The Oxford Scientist and a university admissions consultant.

I run the nationwide Oxford Science Schools essay competition for which I created the IT infrastructure to effectively manage and mark large numbers of essay submissions. I also manage other university societies. 

I am a custom ROM tester and contributor for the Android open source community finding fixes and debugging firmware. In my spare time, I play the violin and violin and am a keen stock trader, invested primarily in renewable technologies and crypto.


Hewan Zewdu

Through my time as a chemistry student at the University of Nottingham, I have been able to discover some of the fascinating ways in which technology can push scientific research into the future. This led me to do my own research into the use of AI in science and the remarkable discoveries reported. With the desire to explore further into this field, it became important to develop my computer science skills to meet the level of my scientific background. Midway through my 3rd year of undergraduate chemistry, I utilised my interest in technology by teaching myself to code through online resources provided through my supervising professor.

At the present time, I have completed the 3rd year of my degree and am moving onto my integrated masters in September. Over the summer, I am also working alongside a group investigating the use of PCA to predict solvent solubility for greener and more efficient solvent selection. I am very excited and grateful for this opportunity and look forward to developing my skills, learning more about the cutting-edge field of scientific technology alongside meeting everyone!  


Jamie Longino

I am a Computer Science Student at the University of Strathclyde and have just completed my 2nd year of studies. My expertise and interests are in Data Science and AI, which I hope to develop through my time with AI3SD. I am going to be working with Computer Vision AI for Analytical Chemistry in my position as an intern with the Reid Group this Summer, and I look forward to learning the intricacies of this technology and how to apply it for real world benefit.

Outside of Computer Science I am very active, being a part of my universities Tennis, Badminton and Rowing clubs, I also play bass and acoustic guitar, and can speak English and Italian. Originally, I am from Aberdeenshire, specifically the Cairngorms National Park region, and now I live in Glasgow to attend university. In my free time, I enjoy reading, cooking, and playing games with friends.


Kaylee Patel

I am a currently a Masters of Chemistry (MChem) student studying at the University of Manchester, with a particular focus on biochemistry and bioinformatics. I have previously undertaken a 9-month research placement, investigating the interaction of silver (II) complexes with biological macromolecules and antioxidants. For my third year research project, I examined the supramolecular interactions between bacterial cytochrome P450s and potential antibacterial drug targets using X-ray crystallography data visualised through computational software, in order to provide an insight into how chemicals can bind into the protein active site.

Computational methods, such as Machine Learning have revolutionised the world of scientific research and I am interested in applying these concepts in helping solve real-life problems. I am keen to use Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning methods within this internship to identify molecular property-antimicrobial efficacy relationships within a library of known antimicrobial compounds, which can help combat the problem of antibiotic resistance – one of the biggest threats to global health.  


Kevin Danie Calvache

My name is Kevin from London, and I recently just completed my 3rd year of MSci Physics at Queen Mary University of London. I have an interest in the theoretical physics, particularly in Quantum Field Theory and a unification between gravity and Quantum Mechanics. However, I also enjoy computational physics and the application of theory and numerical analysis to find solutions. My aspiration is to eventually work for the UK government for its national security/defence. Outside of academic life, I like to play the guitar and piano as well as keeping fit. 


King (Alex) Wong

Hi everyone, this is Alex Wong, a second year Chemistry student from Southampton. The main thing I want to take out from this opportunity is to learn how to utilize machine learning to help and synthesize realistic crystal structure data and look at various of arrangement of molecules and interactions between them.   

As a newbie in computational world, I am very much looking forward to developing my programming skills to push on various chemical problems and help to discover new materials to help the human nature in some sense in my future which will be a big jump from what I am doing in the university currently.   

Furthermore, it will be my first time to carry out research and making proper report from the findings. I hope I can get a grip of it and find out whether I am suitable for computational research or not in order to pursue my career in the future.


Louis Greenhalgh

My name is Louis Greenhalgh, I’m a chemistry undergraduate student at the University of Leeds. My main ambition is to work within scientific industry to help advance environmentally friendly technology such as carbon capture, solar cells and electrical energy storage. I will be working Summer 2021 as an intern at the interdisciplinary Chamberlain research group at my university. I will work on the systems used in continuous-flow reactors, to help enable more efficient industrial scale-up from the laboratory setting.

My main interests in chemistry are materials, analytical and physical chemistry. I am looking forward to contributing to this group’s work, and to obtain valuable research experience to take with me on my research career.  Outside of chemistry, my main hobbies are fitness-oriented; I am a runner and avid hiking enthusiast. I also sing and play piano, learn German, and read fantasy in my spare time. I have just returned from a year abroad studying in Munich, Germany.  

I’d also like to thank the AI3SD organisation for the research grant I and the Chamberlain group will receive, and for the opportunity to complete this internship.


Maximillian Hoffman

This is Max from Berlin. I’m 23 years old and study pharmacy at the Freie Universität of Berlin. 

My fascination for deep learning started a few years ago and since then I started teaching myself programing and tried to get into matter. Combining my fascination for both deep learning and pharmacy, I recently joined a research group at my university for an internship and did a project in which I programed a neural net to predict the metabolism of compounds by CYP3A4. 

Besides uni I enjoy to play tennis with friends and I love to play the piano. Together with my cello partner I participated in competitions and recently I performed Rachmaninoff’s second piano concert together with an orchestra, fulfilling a great wish. 

From the internship, I hope to gain a better idea of the application of machine learning in drug discovery, meet great people, improve my programming skills and gain new knowledge, including on topics beyond machine learning. 

I am already excited and looking forward to the internship. 


Rhyan Barrett

Hi I’m Rhyan. I’m a third-year maths student at the University of Warwick and plan to pursue a PhD in theoretical physics after graduation. I am originally from Milton Keynes and am an avid swimmer. I very much enjoy hiking, travelling and meeting new people. 

I have always been interested in physics, specifically quantum mechanics, and enjoy reading into advanced topics in theoretical physics. I have also recently become interested in machine learning and how it can be used to overcome lots of different problems. 

My research at AI3SD aims to advance the research field of optoelectronics by using deep learning models to suggest new functional organic molecules. We will do this by taking a labelled dataset containing the configurations of molecules and the corresponding excitations energies. We will apply a generative model to predict new structures and will characterize their optoelectronic properties with a previously developed model for excitation energies and photoemission spectra.


Rubaiyat Khondaker

Hello! I’m Rubaiyat and I was born in Bangladesh, moving to the UK when I was around 3 years old, where I’ve spent most of my life since. I’ve had a strong fascination with mathematics since my childhood and achieved varying degrees of successes at British and European Olympiads. I am currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mathematics it at the University of Cambridge. In addition, I enjoy programming, with my main language being python – recently, I gave a talk for the Cambridge mathematics society using animations I’d coded, which took about 5000 lines!

Another one of my projects is a plugin I developed that allows me to import flashcards from text files to Anki, which I use on a regular basis. I’m looking forward to expanding my knowledge of programming to include machine learning techniques. Outside of maths and programming, I enjoy reading – I’ve started reading Frank Herbet’s Dune series, a captivating sci-fi classic. I also play the piano and clarinet – and of course, being into programming, I love playing video games!


Sarah Scripps

I am a Chemical Physics student at the University of Edinburgh starting my fourth year in September. Chemical Physics allows me to study the core concepts from both subjects as well as their intersections in later years. I enjoy the variety in studying both subjects where physics gives a deeper insight into the underlying mathematics and principles, chemistry shows further applications and different ways of viewing the same problems.

The University of Edinburgh is one of the few places that offers such an interdisciplinary course and so was the ideal choice. I have a particular interest in theoretical and computational chemistry and hope to go on to do a PhD once I have completed my current studies.


Thomas Allam

3rd Year Chemistry student at the University of Southampton. Recently completed a 3rd year project with Professor Jeremy Frey, learning about how to apply my chemical knowledge to modelling and curating datasets of Henry’s law as well as intrinsic solubility constants. I am looking forward to improving my python, reporting and general analytical skills over the course of the internship.  I also look forward to learning more about how these skills can be applied to areas of work beyond degree level.