by Janet Kawano published April 27, 2026
UC Berkeley Freshman Daniel Li Awarded 2026 Blumenkranz Summer Research Stipend
UC Berkeley freshman Daniel Li, a double major in Chemistry and Data Science, has been awarded the prestigious 2026 Blumenkranz Summer Research Stipend from the College of Chemistry. The award will support his upcoming work at the frontier of sustainable chemistry and machine learning within the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet (BIDMaP). Working under the mentorship of BIDMaP Faculty Professor Dean Toste and Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Xin Wang, Li is addressing a foundational "bottleneck" in digital chemistry: the scarcity of high-quality, structured datasets for electrochemical reactions.
Bridging the Gap Between Literature and AI
While the primary literature contains vast amounts of electrochemical data, it is often trapped in unstructured text and complex imagery. Li’s research leverages multimodal AI to extract and integrate critical parameters—such as chemical identity and precise reaction conditions—from existing scientific publications.
By transforming this legacy data into AI-ready formats, the project provides the necessary foundation for machine learning models to:
- Uncover the underlying rules of electrochemical reactions
- Design more efficient, selective and synthesis routes routes for drug discovery and medicinal compounds.
Li’s work exemplifies the BIDMaP mission of integrating data science with physical chemistry to solve global challenges. By building a robust data foundation for electrochemistry, this project aims to shorten the path from laboratory discovery to the sustainable production of life-saving medicines. BIDMaP is proud to support early-career researchers like Li who are shaping the future of AI-assisted materials discovery.