Assistant Professor Sayan Banerjee is part of UT’s initiative to be a leader in advancing science-informed artificial intelligence to meet national priorities.

Assistant Professor Sayan Banerjee joined the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in fall 2025 as part of the university’s Science-Informed AI cluster. 

The Banerjee Group will focus on building predictive chemical theories to address global challenges in energy and sustainability. Working at the intersection of theoretical chemistry, machine learning (ML), and materials science, the group targets complex problems including the electrification of the chemical industry, sustainable recycling, and quantum materials. 

Banerjee’s efforts will involve creating physical chemistry-aware ML models to accelerate the discovery of functional materials for catalytic and optoelectronic applications.

He earned his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania under the mentorship of Professor Andrew M. Rappe (2018–2023). 

For his research, Banerjee received the American Chemical Society (ACS) Computers in Chemistry Graduate Student Award and the ACS Catalysis Division Graduate Student Travel Award at the fall 2023 ACS meeting. 

While at Penn, he was also named a Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology Graduate Fellow, collaborating with Professor Thomas E. Mallouk—an experience that inspired his transition to experimental science during his postdoctoral work. 

From 2023 to 2025, Banerjee served as a Resnick Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech (California Institute of Technology), working with Professor Jonas C. Peters. 

His academic journey has provided him with a unique perspective on the interplay between computational simulations and laboratory experiments.