Bijun Tang

Bijun Tang

Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at NTU | Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia | AI2050 Early Career Fellow

👋 About Me

Hi! I’m Dr. Bijun Tang, a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. I also spent time as a visiting scientist at Rice University, USA. I earned both my BEng (First Class Honours) and PhD from NTU in 2017 and 2021.

My work sits at the exciting intersection of materials science and artificial intelligence (AI). I’m passionate about developing AI-driven tools and platforms to make the discovery and synthesis of new materials faster, smarter, and more efficient. While I focus a lot on 2D materials, my research also spans a range of low-dimensional and high-performance materials such as 0D nanoparticles, 1D nanoribbons, as well as 3D alloys and multi-functional composites.

I’ve published over 40 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals like Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Electronics, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and Materials Today. My work has been cited more than 2,500 times, and I currently have an H-index of 25. I’ve led and co-led several major projects in AI for Materials Science (AI4MS), with total research funding exceeding S$7 million.

🔬 Research Interests

My research blends deep materials knowledge with cutting-edge AI techniques. I’m especially interested in:

  • Creating and studying low-dimensional materials (like 2D sheets, 1D ribbons, and 0D dots) for various applications such as electronics and catalysis
  • Using AI to guide the design and synthesis of new materials, from 0D quantum dots to 2D materials and now to 3D alloys
  • Applying data-driven methods for phase control, property optimization, and multi-objective material design
  • Building autonomous and explainable AI systems to speed up materials development with less trial and error

At the heart of it all, I’m working toward a future where discovering and making new materials becomes faster, more intelligent, and more insightful.

✨ Recent Highlights

  • 🎤 Invited Talk at 2026 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit (2026)
    I’ll be giving a presentation for the symposium: “AI-Driven Workflows and Autonomous Platforms for Functional Material Design and Catalysis” in Boston
    Conference details →

  • 📄 New Publication: MatSeek: An Automated Knowledge-Driven Framework for Materials Research (2026)
    An LLM-based framework that integrates literature-driven knowledge extraction with structured materials data to enable interpretable and efficient inverse alloy design, published at the AI4Mat Workshop at ICLR 2026
    Paper details →

  • 🎤 Symposium Co-chair, AI for Materials Discovery Symposium (2026)
    Co-chairing a major symposium on AI for Materials Discovery, NTU Singapore
    Symposium details →

  • 📄 New Preprint: MATAI: A Generalist Machine Learning Framework for Property Prediction and Inverse Design of Advanced Alloys (2025)
    A generalist machine learning framework, integrating a curated alloy database, deep neural network-based property predictors, a constraint-aware optimization engine, and an iterative AI-experiment feedback loop, for alloys development published on arXiv: MATAI (arXiv:2511.10108)
    Paper details →

  • 🎤 Invited Talk at 18th Pujiang Innovation Forum (2025)
    Gave a keynote titled “Accelerating Materials Synthesis through AI: From Feasibility to Autonomy” at the AI for Materials Science Forum in Shanghai
    Forum details →

  • 🥇 AI2050 Early Career Fellow, Schmidt Sciences (2024)
    Only Asia-based recipient among 15 global fellows, first from Singapore
    AI2050 Fellowship profile →

  • 🥇 NTU Emerging Scientist Award (2024)
    Recognized as one of three female awardees at GLOW 2024

  • 🥇 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia, Healthcare & Science (2023)
    For pioneering the use of machine learning in materials discovery
    Forbes profile →

  • 📄 Recent publications in leading journals: