Data-driven materials discovery

Join us for the Clifford Paterson Lecture 2020 given by Professor Jacqui Cole.

Professor Jacqueline Cole was awarded the Clifford Paterson Medal and Lecture 2020 for the development of photo-crystallography and the discovery of novel high-performance nonlinear optical materials and light-harvesting dyes using molecular design rules. After 2 years of delays due to the global pandemic, Professor Cole now has the opportunity to deliver the Prize Lecture.

Professor Cole will describe how one can combine the predictive power of artificial intelligence with data science and algorithms to discover new materials for the energy sector. A ‘design-to-device’ pipeline for materials discovery will be demonstrated. Thereby, large-scale data-mining workflows are fashioned to predict successfully new chemicals that possess a targeted functionality.

The success of such a data-driven materials discovery approach is nonetheless contingent upon having the right data source to mine. It also requires algorithms that suitably encode structure-function relationships into data-mining workflows that progressively short list data toward the prediction of a lead material for experimental validation. The talk shows how suitable data are sourced, algorithms are designed and fed into predictions, and how these predictions are borne out by experiments.

The award

The Clifford Paterson Medal and Lecture is given for outstanding contributions in the field of engineering. The lectureship was originally endowed by The General Electric Company in memory of Clifford Paterson FRS, who founded the GEC Research Laboratories in 1919. Originally the lectures were given on electrical science and technology but this was later broadened to any aspect of engineering. The first lecture was given in 1975. The medal is of bronze, is awarded biennially and is accompanied by a gift of £2,000.

Attending the event

• the event is free to join
• registration is recommended to attend in person otherwise availability cannot be guaranteed
• live subtitles will be available in person and virtually

Attending in person

• this lecture can be attended in person at the Royal Society
• doors will open to the public at 6.10pm BST
• registration is recommended if attending in person, otherwise availability cannot be guaranteed
• travel and accessibility information

Attending live online

• The lecture will also be livestreamed here and on the Royal Society YouTube channel
• You can take part in the live Q&A
• This event will be recorded (including the live Q&A) and the recording will be available on YouTube soon after the event 

For all enquiries, please contact events@royalsociety.org.