Frank Noé Named American Physical Society Fellow

Freie Universität professor and Microsoft research partner honored for work in machine learning for the physical sciences

Frank Noé, professor at Freie Universität Berlin and partner at Microsoft Research AI for Science, has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). Election to the APS fellowship is considered one of the highest honors for a physicist, recognizing exceptional contributions to advances in physics through original research, innovative applications, teaching, and leadership. Each year no more than 0.5 percent of APS members, excluding student members, are awarded the status of fellow.

Noé was chosen for his contribution to "the development of machine learning methods for advancing the physical sciences, in particular for the many-body sampling problem and the electronic structure problem," according to the APS website. Noé’s work is highly interdisciplinary and combines methods from machine learning and theoretical physics in pursuit of solutions to fundamental challenges in molecular modeling and simulation.

Following the deep learning revolution, Noé’s lab has focused on integrating deep learning into its research, which has led to various breakthroughs, including novel insights into the Boltzmann Generator approach to accelerate the sampling of molecular structures from their equilibrium distribution by orders of magnitude as well as the development of a deep learning system for computing highly accurate solutions of the electronic Schrödinger equation.

Frank Noé joined Microsoft Research in 2022 to establish a Berlin-based lab for artificial intelligence research in the sciences after having been a professor at Freie Universität Berlin for ten years. He is a two-time recipient of European Research Council (ERC) grants and is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.

The Latin words veritas, justitia, and libertas, which frame the seal of Freie Universität Berlin, stand for the values that have defined the academic ethos of Freie Universität since its founding in December 1948.