USU Chemist Awarded Prestigious Postdoctoral Post at Los Alamos National Lab

In the spring of 2020, Utah State University doctoral scholar Maksim Kulichenko looked forward to accepting a prestigious internship at New Mexico’s storied Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was one of an unprecedented three USU scholars, all students of Professor Alex Boldyrev in USU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, selected for the highly competitive opportunity.

Just as Kulichenko and his fellow Aggies were making housing plans and travel arrangements, the COVID-19 pandemic progressed and the internships were moved to remote status. The scholars dove into their internships — remotely — from Logan.

“Yes, it was disappointing news, as we all looked forward to being at the historic lab and exploring the surrounding landscapes,” Kulichenko says. “But, on the plus side, we saved on rent and travel.”

The internships fostered lasting collaborations between the USU chemists and their LANL mentors, including published papers and, for Kulichenko, the partnership led to a sought-after post the newly minted Ph.D. will pursue following May 2022 graduation. Kulichenko has been named a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow, one of a limited number of posts offered by the lab to a select pool of the nation’s top scholars.

“I’m very excited to join the lab in person,” says Kulichenko, who has been working, since his internship, with the lab’s team members. “This is an opportunity to continue our work in developing models to advance quantum mechanical calculations, allowing for increasingly faster, large-scale simulations.”

During his LANL collaboration, the quantum chemist has delved into machine learning and neural networks, aimed at addressing computationally demanding chemistry calculations.

“This is usually done by pre-trained artificial neural networks,” Kukichenko says. “However, neural networks require a proper dataset to be trained on. I’ve worked toward developing a technique of constructing a dataset which would cover as much chemical space as possible while keeping a manageable dataset size.”

The Russia native, who grew up about 100 miles south of Moscow and completed his undergraduate studies at Moscow State University, entered USU in August 2018.

“I didn’t know a lot about Utah except what I’d seen on television when Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Olympic Games,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed visiting some of the national parks and the scenery around Logan.”

Kulichenko, who was named Chemistry and Biochemistry’s 2022 Outstanding Graduate Student, has high praise for Utah State and, especially, for his faculty adviser Boldyrev, USU’s first R. Gaurth Hansen Professor.

“Dr. Boldyrev is the best mentor I have ever met,” he says. “He provides his students with the freedom to pursue ideas while teaching valuable research and time management skills, offering encouragement and instilling skills and knowledge for success.”

Kulichenko says he’s also grateful for USU faculty, for lecture programs that gave him opportunities to meet experts pursuing breakthrough science and to staff who enabled him to present at national meetings and to participate in the LANL internship.

“There’s a tremendous amount of paperwork and preparation required to participate in research at a high-security facility, especially as an international student,” he says. “USU really cares about its students and their success. USU staff members went above and beyond to help me succeed.”