People

Zhihao Cui (last name pronounced "tsway") is a theoretical scientist whose work spans theoretical chemistry, computational materials, condensed matter physics, quantum materials, and energy materials/catalysis. His research develops quantum chemistry and many-body approaches for novel quantum materials, including superconductors, strongly correlated materials, light-matter interactions, and electron-phonon coupled systems.

Before joining UC Irvine as an Assistant Professor, Zhihao was a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University with David Reichman and Andrew Millis. There, he developed theoretical methods for electron-boson coupled systems, including canonical-transformation-based perturbation theory for polariton chemistry and self-consistent Eliashberg theory for superconductors.

His Ph.D. work at Caltech with Garnet Chan focused on theoretical frameworks for high-temperature superconductors and strongly correlated materials, including ab initio quantum embedding and simulations of magnetic and superconducting properties. Earlier work at Peking University and UCLA included first-principles approaches for energy materials and catalysis.

Zhihao has received the Herbert Newby McCoy Award, the ACS Chemical Computing Group Excellence Award for Graduate Students, and the Eddleman Research Fellowship; he has also reviewed for more than 20 journals, including Nat. Commun., Phys. Rev. X, J. Chem. Theory Comput., J. Phys. Chem. Lett., and J. Mater. Chem. A.

Outside research, he enjoys table tennis 🏓, chess ♟️, and cooking 🍳.