Dr Flaviu Cipcigan is a Research Scientist in the AI Research team at EIT, where he advances AI for science, develops foundation models and devises machine learning techniques for challenges in healthcare and sustainability.
Previously, Flaviu was a Staff Research Scientist at IBM Research. He led programmes that trained foundation models and improved machine learning algorithms for chemistry, materials, and biology. His work led to the discovery of amines for carbon capture, the discovery of antimicrobial peptides and the design of metal–organic frameworks for CO₂ capture. During his time at IBM, he also managed collaborative projects with external partners and supervised PhD students at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford.
Flaviu holds a PhD in Physics and MPhys in Computational Physics from the University of Edinburgh. His doctoral thesis built the first water model based on quantum Drude oscillators, establishing this algorithm as one of the most powerful for simulating intermolecular interactions.
His research has earned Flaviu global recognition, including Forbes 30 Under 30, and IBM Pat Goldberg Award, three IBM Outstanding Technical Accomplishment awards and two journal covers. Earlier honours include national awards for his PhD and undergraduate research, medals in national mathematics and physics Olympiads, and co-authoring his first conference paper at age 17.
Beyond research, Flaviu is an Argentine-tango dancer, gym enthusiast and community-builder. He co-founded a volunteering organisation and actively grows open-source communities focused on AI for chemistry and materials.