cd_portrait.jpg

Dong Chen

Visiting Assistant Professor in Math @ MSU

• Contact: chendo11@msu.edu
• Office: C331 Wells Hall, 619 Red Cedar Road, East Lansing, MI 48824

 I am on the job market this year. Welcome to connect with me.

Bios

I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Michigan State University, working with Prof. Guo-Wei Wei in East Lansing, Michigan. I earned my Ph.D. in Materials Physics and Chemistry from Peking University in 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Feng Pan.

Research Interests: My research centers on AI for Science, combining mathematical modeling and machine learning (ML) to advance discovery in chemistry, materials, and biology. I develop methods in topological data analysis (TDA), representation learning, and foundation models, with applications to drug discovery, drug resistance, addiction research, and the discovery of energy storage, and porous materials.

Awards & Grants

Pending National Institutes of Health, Topological deep learning models for the discovery of anti-opioid use disorder drugs, $3.8M (Co-I).
2025–2029 U.S. Department of Energy, Microelectronics science research center projects for energy efficiency and extreme environments, $480,000 (Co-PI).
2024–2026 American Mathematical Society, AMS Simons Travel Grant, $5,000 (Recipient).
2023–2024 Bristol Myers Squibb, Virtual patient simulation and analysis for BMS' heart failure model and myosin, $371,000 (Co-PI).

News

Selected Publications

  1. Nat. Mach. Intell.
    Multiscale topology-enabled structure-to-sequence transformer for protein–ligand interaction predictions
    Dong Chen, Jian Liu, and Guo-Wei Wei
    Nature Machine Intelligence, 2024
  2. Nat. Commun.
    Algebraic graph-assisted bidirectional transformers for molecular property prediction
    Dong Chen, Kaifu Gao, Duc Duy Nguyen, Xin Chen, Yi Jiang, Guo-Wei Wei, and Feng Pan
    Nature Communications, 2021
  3. JACS
    Superionic Ionic Conductor Discovery via Multiscale Topological Learning
    Dong Chen, Bingxu Wang, Shunning Li, Wentao Zhang, Kai Yang, Yongli Song, Guo-Wei Wei, and Feng Pan
    Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2025
  4. Adv. Sci.
    Drug Resistance Predictions Based on a Directed Flag Transformer
    Dong Chen, Gengzhuo Liu, Hongyan Du, Benjamin Jones, Junjie Wee, Rui Wang, Jiahui Chen, Jana Shen, and Guo-Wei Wei
    Advanced Science, 2024
  5. JPCL
    Path topology in molecular and materials sciences
    Dong Chen, Jian Liu, Jie Wu, Guo-Wei Wei, Feng Pan, and Shing-Tung Yau
    The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2023