Jed Pitera

Dr. Pitera is currently leading a team applying accelerated discovery for computing and nanotechnology. The mission of this team is to use AI and machine learning to accelerate the discovery of advanced materials for the fabrication, function, and packaging of classical and quantum computing systems. The team has specific materials efforts in sustainability, packaging, and inorganics as well as automated systems for synthesis and discovery.

Previously, he completed an operations rotation as the Technical Assistant to Dr. Jeff Welser, VP IBM Research – Almaden, Australia, China, Japan. In this role, he helped with operations, strategy, recruiting, technical vitality, and business processes for a research site with ~700 inhabitants across a variety of technical disciplines.

Dr. Pitera received undergraduate training in Biology and Chemistry at Caltech and a Ph.D. in Biophysics at the UCSF in the laboratory of Prof. Peter Kollman.  His postdoctoral work was in computational physical chemistry with Prof. Dr. Wilfred van Gunsteren at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland.  

In 2001, he joined IBM Research and has been a research staff member at IBM for over two decades, applying computational tools and machine learning to challenging materials R&D problems. He has published 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has an h-index of 35, and is a co-inventor on 9 granted US patents. Dr. Pitera is also an adjunct assistant professor in the UCSF Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.