Caltech Together: Silicon Valley

“Using AI to Accelerate the Discovery of New Small Molecules“.
Join Us Online.

Thursday, October 16, 2025
5:30 – 7:00 p.m.

If you would like to attend, register in advance for this event here.

Following the webinar, join us for a post-event social via Zoom, where you’ll have the opportunity to mingle with fellow alumni and speak with the presenter. If you would like our alumni or professors to share with us their work/interests during a future event, please let me know.

We look forward to seeing you!

Peter Tong

“Using AI to Accelerate the Discovery of New Small Molecules”
By Connor Coley

The prototypical discovery workflow for molecules involves iterating through design-build-test loops. AI has a role to play in (a) property prediction, (b) molecular design, and (c) synthesis planning, among others. This talk will summarize some approaches to each of these tasks individually. More importantly, it will discuss the merits of approaching these tasks simultaneously and considering, for example, practical considerations of synthesis during molecular generation.

About the Speaker

Connor is the Class of 1957 Career Development Professor and an Associate Professor at MIT in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His research group works at the interface of AI and chemistry to develop models that understand how molecules behave, interact, and react and use that knowledge to engineer new ones, with an emphasis on therapeutic discovery. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Caltech and his PhD from MIT, followed by postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute.

Connor’s work has been recognized with the NSF CAREER Award (2021), C&EN’s “Talented Twelve” (2018), Forbes 30 Under 30: Healthcare (2019), Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 (2023), and the Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award (2021), among other honors. He was named as a Schmidt AI2050 Early Career Fellow (2022), Samsung AI Researcher of the Year (2023), Scialog Fellow (2024), and Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar (2025), and was selected for the NAE Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (2025). Connor has been further recognized for his teaching and mentorship by MIT’s inaugural Common Ground Award for Excellence in Teaching (2023), the Outstanding UROP Mentor Award (2024), and the James W. Swan Outstanding Faculty Award for Graduate Teaching in Chemical Engineering (2024, 2025).

Outside of MIT, Connor is a scientific advisor to several companies pursuing AI-driven discovery. He serves on the advisory boards of ACS Central Science, Chemical Science, and Digital Discovery, and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Our Alumni Volunteers‍

The following alumni work together to serve you: Avni Gandhi, Dave Adler, Jane Frommer, Mike Klein, Susan Huynh, and Peter Tong.