Biography

I am a first-year Ph.D. student at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), currently advised by Prof. Boris Kozinsky. The group focus on designing and using machine-learning accelerated computational methods such as MLFF to improve our understanding of materials. My received my undergraduate education at Brown University. At Brown, I had the privilege of working with Prof. Kavita Ramanan on connecting Spin-Glass models with statistical mechanical predictions such as the Bethe prediction.

Outside the physical sciences, I also have a devoted interest in Linguistics, especially in historical phonology, the study and reconstruction of language sounds in the distant past. In many cases, reconstructions can extend to a time before written records. This provides explanation for the divergence of dialects and emergence of new languages. Perhaps more importantly, historical linguistics paints a fuller picture of the cultural histories that are not explicitly recorded.

Besides academics, I also enjoy watching anime and singing. I am a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, a student choir at Harvard University.

On my name: My legal name is Yizhong Hu (胡奕中, [xu˧˥ i˥˩ ʈʂoŋ˥]), but for academic purposes, I will use Yizhong Richard Hu, shortened to Y. Richard Hu or just Richard Hu.