Dr. Benedict Saunders

Dr. Benedict Saunders is a postdoctoral researcher in the Computational Surface Science Group, contributing to the team’s research in theoretical and computational chemistry.

Research Focus

Benedict’s work centers around the acceleration of workflows for materials discovery, with a focus on doped and defective 2D systems, to understand how the electronic structure of such materials can be precisely tuned to suit a particular application. The the development of robust, high-throughput computational workflows is at the core of his methodology, integrating “traditional” physics-based approaches with modern data-driven techniques, including:

• Density Functional Theory
• Machine Learning-Assisted Structure Prediction
• Topological Description and Analysis
• High-Volume Data Curation

By understanding the relationship between individual structural motifs and their effect on graphene’s electronic structure, Benedict’s research provides a “bottom-up” pathway for the design of next-generation metal-free catalysts, electronics, and energy storage materials.

Background

Benedict earned his PhD at the University of Warwick, where he investigated various structure search methods for defective bulk and 2D materials under the joint supervision of Prof. Maurer, Dr. Hoermann, and Dr. Karasulu. Previously, he held a research position within Prof. Martijn Zwijnenburg’s group at UCL, graduating with a Distinction in his MSc. in Chemical Research.

Publications

For a complete list of publications, visit his Google Scholar profile.