The Marcus Center Announces Inaugural Postdoctoral Fellowship Recipients
The Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry at Caltech is pleased to announce Srikant Sagireddy and Zhenling Wang as the first recipients of the Liang-Neng Luo and Guo-Hua Lou Postdoctoral Fellowships. Named in honor of the parents of Dr. Mary Zi-ping Luo, one of the founding donors of the Marcus Center, these fellowships were established to support outstanding new postdoctoral scholars working in theoretical chemistry and/or theoretical chemical engineering in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (CCE). Both recipients will come to Caltech this fall, with Srikant joining Prof. Kara Fong's group and Zhenling joining Prof. Garnet Chan's group.
Srikant Sagireddy
Srikant Sagireddy is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, where he is advised by Professor Jian Qin. He earned his B.S. in the same discipline from the University of California, Berkeley in 2021. His doctoral research focuses on understanding chain conformation and ordering in ribbon-like polymers through a combination of analytical theory, numerical computation, and molecular simulation.
Srikant's work addresses fundamental limitations of the traditional worm-like chain model by incorporating distinct bending and twisting stiffnesses intrinsic to conjugated polymer backbones. Using recently developed ribbon-like chain models, his research reveals how orientational coupling can give rise to biaxial nematic ordering, connecting polymer chemical structure to mesoscale organization. These insights provide design principles for optimizing conjugated polymers used in flexible electronics, bioelectronics, and biosensors.
In his free time, Srikant enjoys traveling, hiking, playing volleyball, and following sports.
Zhenling Wang
Zhenling Wang, who grew up in Guangzhou, China, earned his bachelor's degree in Chemistry in 2021 from Tsinghua University in Beijing before moving to the United States for graduate study in the same field. He is currently completing his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, where he works with Professor Martin Head-Gordon.
Zhenling's research centers on the development of low-scaling electron correlation methods. During his doctoral work, he has developed a numerical-sparsity-based MP2 algorithm with embedding corrections that are three to five times faster than prior state-of-the-art methods while retaining systematically controllable accuracy. This numerical sparsity framework naturally extends to correlated energy decomposition analysis and to higher-order correlation methods, including coupled-cluster theories.
Outside of his scholarly work, Zhenling is a contract bridge player (who won second place in last year's collegiate) and an avid lover of rhythm games.
