Contact:

galen.craven@gmail.com

GCraven I am a Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In my group, we develop theories that enable the development of next-generation materials, electronics, and energy technologies. The primary research areas in my group are nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and chemical reaction dynamics. We are theory-focused group that uses a number of different analytical, computational, and data-driven methods to solve complex problems. My main goal is to develop foundational science that enables paradigm-shifting advances.

News

2025

  • New paper "First results for uranium nitride fuel characterization using an accelerated fuel qualification process" is published in Nuclear Science and Engineering
  • Bharat Srikishan has been awarded a graduate fellowship from the Center of Nonlinear Studies!
  • Bharat Srikishan won an award for his Theoretical Division Lightning Talk. Congratulations, Bharat!
  • New paper "Teacher-student training improves the accuracy and efficiency of machine learning interatomic potentials" is published in Digital Discovery
  • New paper "Neuromorphic heat transport effects in a molecular junction" is published in The Journal of Chemical Physics
  • Landon Johnson has returned to the group for the fourth summer to work on time-series reconstruction for high explosives detonations. Welcome back, Landon!
  • Bharat Srikishan has joined the group and will be working with Charlie Young, Javier Santos, and Galen on time-series forecasting. Welcome, Bharat!
  • New paper "Machine learning models for volumetric swelling in uranium nitride" is published in Journal of Nuclear Materials.
  • New paper "AWSD reactive flow model for PBX 9404" is published in Journal of Applied Physics as an Editor's Pick!
  • New paper "AWSD Reactive Burn Model for High Explosive LX-14" is published in Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics.
  • New paper "Heat transport hysteresis generated through frequency switching of a time-dependent temperature gradient" is published in Entropy.

2024

  • New paper "Reconstructing dissipative dynamical systems from spatially and temporally sparse sensors" is published in proceedings of NeurIPS Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences.
  • New paper "Thermodynamic transferability in coarse-grained force fields using graph neural networks" is published in Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation.
  • New paper "Uranium Mononitride (UN) Handbook" is published as a LANL technical report.
  • New paper "Multiphysics analysis of mechanical responses in micro-reactors under varied operating conditions" is published in European Journal of Mechanics - A/Solids.
  • New paper "The effect of temperature oscillations on energy storage rectification in harmonic systems" is published in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.
  • Manuel Palma has joined the group for the summer and will be working with Charlie Young and Galen on symbolic regression. Welcome, Manuel!
  • New paper "Machine learning method to determine concentrations of structural defects in irradiated materials" is published in Computational Materials Science.
  • New paper "Molecular heat transport across a time-periodic temperature gradient" is published in The Journal of Chemical Physics.
  • New paper "Optical and transport properties of plasma mixtures from ab initio molecular dynamics" is published in Physics of Plasmas.
  • Landon Johnson has returned to the group for the third summer to work on nuclear fuels models. Welcome back, Landon!
  • Alex Guo has joined the group and will be working with Charlie Young, Javier Santos, and Galen on time-series forecasting. Welcome, Alex!
  • Zac Miller will be working with us on nuclear fuels modeling. Welcome, Zac!
  • Vidushi Sharma has joined the group and will be working with Galen and Alex White on nonequilibrium chemical dynamics. Welcome, Vidushi!

2023

  • New paper "Energy transport between heat baths with oscillating temperatures" is published in Physical Review E.
  • New paper "Data-driven methods for diffusivity prediction in nuclear fuels" is published in Computational Materials Science.
  • New paper "Simulations of self-and Xe diffusivity in uranium mononitride including chemistry and irradiation effects" is published in Journal of Nuclear Materials.
  • Charlie Young has joined the group and will be working with Galen, Alex White, and Sergei Tretiak on nonequilibrium chemical dynamics. Welcome, Charlie!
  • Emily Shinkle has joined the group and will be working with Nick Lubbers from the CCS-3 group and Galen on machine learning applied to coarse-grained simulations. Welcome, Emily!
  • Lucas Trojanowski and Nicholas Dailey have joined the group for the summer to work on nonequilibrium chemical dynamics. Welcome Lucas and Nick!
  • New paper "Generalized kinetic model for defect evolution in irradiated materials" with Brandon Wilson published as a LANL technical report .
  • Landon Johnson has returned to the group for the summer to work on uncertainty quantification of nuclear fuels models. Welcome back, Landon!
  • New paper "Electron hopping heat transport in molecules" with Abe Nitzan published in JCP.

2022

  • Landon Johnson has joined the group for the summer to work on machine learning models for nuclear fuels.
  • New award Renai Chen has been awarded a Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS) postdoctoral fellowship. Congratulations, Renai!
  • Renai Chen has joined the group to work on nanoscale heat transfer problems.

2021

  • New paper ""Heat transport induced by electron transfer: A general temperature quantum calculation" with researchers from UPenn published in JCP.
  • New paper "Analytical solutions of the Arrhenius-Semenov problem for constant volume burn" published as a LANL technical report .
  • Sam Battey has joined the group to develop models for defect growth in materials.

2020

  • New paper "Machine learning approaches for structural and thermodynamic properties of a Lennard-Jones fluid" with researchers from LANL published in JCP.
  • New paper "Ex machina determination of structural correlation functions" with researchers from LANL published in JPCL.
  • New paper "Wiedemann-Franz law for molecular hopping transport" with Abe Nitzan published in Nano Letters.

2019

  • I have been awarded a Director's Postdoctoral Fellowship at LANL.
  • I have been awarded a fellowship to work in the Center for Nonlinear Studies at LANL.
  • I have started a new position as a postdoctoral associate at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

2018

  • New paper "Electron-transfer-induced thermal and thermoelectric rectification" with Dahai He and Abe Nitzan published at PRL.
  • New paper - The second paper in our upside/downside series: "Upside/Downside statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium Brownian motion. II. Heat transfer and energy partitioning of a free particle" is published in JCP.
  • New paper "Upside/Downside statistical mechanics of nonequilibrium Brownian motion. I. Distributions, moments, and correlation functions of a free particle" with Abe Nitzan published in JCP.

2017

  • AIP has featured our recent work on phononic and electron-transfer-induced heat currents as a Scilight.
  • New paper "Electron-transfer-induced and phononic heat transport in molecular environments" in collaboration with Renai Chen and Abraham Nitzan published in JCP.
  • New paper "Lagrangian descriptors of driven chemical reaction manifolds" with Andrej Junginger and Rigoberto Hernandez published in PRE.
  • New paper "Transition state theory for activated systems with driven anharmonic barriers" in collaboration with researchers from the TranS-MI network published in JCP.
  • New paper "Electrothermal transistor effect and cyclic electronic currents in multithermal charge transfer networks" with Abe Nitzan published in PRL.
  • I have been awarded an ACS PHYS Young Investigator Award.
  • The Association of American Universities has highlighted our work on electrothermal transport.
  • UPenn has featured our recent work on electrothermal transport.

2016

  • New paper "Electron transfer at thermally heterogeneous molecule-metal interfaces" with Abe Nitzan published in JCP.
  • UPenn Chemistry, Nanowerk, and Phys.org have featured our work on electron transfer across a thermal gradient.
  • I have been awarded a travel grant to attend the 2017 Dynamics Days conference.
  • UPenn has published a story highlighting our recent PNAS paper on nonequilibrium electron transfer.
  • PNAS has published a commentary describing our recent work on nonequilibrium electron transfer.
  • New paper "Electron transfer across a thermal gradient" with Abe Nitzan published in PNAS.
  • I have been awarded a Peter Salamon Award for Young Scientists from the Telluride Science Research Center.
  • New paper "Transition state geometry of thermal chemical reactions on time-dependent double-well potentials" in collaboration with researchers from the TranS-MI network published in PCCP.
  • I have been selected to give a talk at the Emerging Technologies in Computational Chemistry Symposium at the Fall 2016 ACS meeting.
  • I will be presenting at the Dynamics of Natural & Artificial Systems For Energy Conversion: Insights Gained from Spectroscopic Methods & Theory symposium at the Fall 2016 ACS meeting.
  • New paper "Deconstructing field-induced ketene isomerization through Lagrangian descriptors" with Rigoberto Hernandez published in PCCP.

2015

  • New paper "Lagrangian descriptors of thermalized transition states on time-varying energy surfaces" with Rigoberto Hernandez published in PRL.
  • I have started a new position as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania working in the lab of Abraham Nitzan.