About Me

News: 2024, I will join Flatiron Institute as a flatiron research fellow in CCM after graduation

My name is Minhuan Li (李黾奂), currently a final-year PhD student of Applied Physics at Harvard University. I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Doeke Hekstra. In Doeke’s lab, I am working on guiding protein conformation genetaive models with raw exprimental data. In this era highlighting “AI for science”, the pursuit of high-throughput data sources and the development of tools to construct interpretable models from these vast data reservoirs constitute what I deem immensely valuable. I also try to use statistical physics framework plus machine learning tools to construct models of protein dynamics. I had an enjoyable internship at D.E. Shaw Research maching learning team, where I developed training protocols/methods to jointly fit a family of QM/ML force field models against both QM and experimental data. In the meantime, I got an PhD fellowship in Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at Broad Institute, where I had the opportunity to engage with individuals working across various tiers of biomedical data analysis.

I am broadly interested in understanding complex systems with statistical physics. Generally speaking, I am an advocate of Anderson’s ‘More is Different’ philosophy. Before coming to Harvard, I graduated from the Physics Department Fudan University. I did research about phase transitions in colloids under supervision of Prof. Peng Tan, which provides me ample intuitions about system statistics. I have also worked with Prof. Cengiz Pehlevan in the computational neuroscience field, where we construct a theoretical framework to understand how could brain incorporates different information resources.

Outside academics, I am a cinephilia (or a film lover). I enjoy literary films, or so-called Le film d’auteur. My favourite directors include Yasujirō Ozu(小津安二郎), Emir Kusturica(库斯图里卡), Woody Allen(伍迪艾伦) and 姜文. I also enjoy rock music, soccer, ping-pong, and bouldering. I find it great when people devote themselves into something and dig out tiny ambiguous emotions generated from their glorious spiritual world.