“I use computer simulations to uncover how interactions between photons, electrons, and ions govern the fundamental processes of matter — shaping the way energy and information are converted, stored, and transported.”

Shuxia Tao is Associate Professor of Intelligent Materials Theory at TU/e. Her research combines first-principles theory with machine learning to accelerate the design of semiconducting materials for energy and information technologies. She investigates halides, oxides, nitrides, and dichalcogenides, exploring quantum phenomena such as optoelectronic effects, chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS), and spin electrochemistry (SEC). These insights guide the development of materials for applications in photovoltaics, LEDs, photodetectors, catalysis, and spintronics for energy-efficient information processing. Visit https://www.shuxiatao.com/ for details of her research.

Shuxia Tao earned her master’s degree in Physical Chemistry from Nankai University in China before starting her PhD at TU/e in 2007 in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. She completed her PhD in 2011, focusing on computational materials design for batteries and fuel cells. After a brief career break to care for her children, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the NWO physics institute NIKHEF (Amsterdam) from 2013 to 2016, where she specialized in computational materials design for photodetectors. Since 2016, she has led her own research group in the Department of Applied Physics at TU/e focusing on novel optoelectronic materials, becoming an Assistant Professor in 2018 and an Associate Professor in 2023. Her group is part of the Materials Simulation & Modelling (MSM) and is affiliated with the Eindhoven Institute for Renewable Energy Systems (EIRES) and Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute (EAISI). 

Shuxia has received several prestigious grants and awards, including the CSER Tenure Track Fellowship (2016), NWO START-UP (2019), NWO VIDI (2022), Aspasia (2023), NWO Open Competition M (2024), and ERC Consolidator (2024). She is an Associate Editor for AI for Science (Institute of Physics Publishing) and Editorial Board Member of Applied Physics Letters. She also serves on committee for the national research communities of Nano, Quantum, and Materials Physics and is an member of the Round Table Physics at NWO, the national research council. In these roles, she contributes to shaping the strategic research agenda for materials physics and computational science.