Dr. Pranoy Ray is a Postdoctoral Researcher within the Gagliardi Group at the University of Chicago. His research centers on computational materials science and data-driven discovery, with a specialized focus on molecular structure screening using spatial statistics. He develops feature engineering workflows to inform robust material process-structure-property relationships and integrates physics-based constraints in density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) with machine learning models on high-performance computing (HPC) systems.
Dr. Ray earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (2026) and M.S. in Computational Science and Engineering (2024) from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was also recognized as a William H. Glenn Sr. Fellow, Woodruff School Fellow, and Novelis Graduate Scholar. He completed his undergraduate training in Metallurgical & Materials Engineering at the National Institute of Technology – Durgapur, India in 2020.
Prior to joining the Gagliardi Group, Dr. Ray gained industry experience as a Data Science Manager and Materials Scientist Intern at Multiscale Technologies Inc. in Seattle (2024), and earlier as a Research Assistant at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, India (2019–2021). He has also been recognized with multiple competitive travel fellowships, including as an EIIF Fellow and CMS3 Fellow. As a member of the Gagliardi Group, he continues to advance computational materials science by bridging physics-based modeling with data-driven approaches to accelerate materials discovery.