Mendoza LabQuantum Simulations and AI Lab

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Physics and Astronomy
Michigan State University

José L. Mendoza-Cortés

Portrait of José L. Mendoza-Cortés

Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University. Affiliated faculty, Physics and Astronomy. Director of the Mendoza Lab, also called the AI QUANTUM Lab (AI and QUantum Hub for Advanced Next-generation Technologies and Ultimate Materials).

José L. Mendoza-Cortés is a theoretical and computational condensed-matter physicist, materials scientist and chemist at Michigan State University. He develops methods to solve the Schrödinger and Dirac equations and machine-learning models, studies their mathematical properties, and uses them with experimental partners to design materials for energy storage, catalysis, and 2D and quantum technologies. He received his Ph.D. from Caltech and was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Download CV (PDF)

Biography

José Mendoza-Cortés grew up in Mexico, where he earned top honors in the national knowledge olympiad for primary schools and, in high school, competed in the national olympiads in chemistry, informatics, mathematics and physics, representing Mexico at the 2002 International Chemistry Olympiad. He studied chemistry at Tecnológico de Monterrey (B.Sc. 2008) and spent the last two years of his degree as an exchange student at UCLA, completing graduate coursework and joining the group of Omar Yaghi.

As an undergraduate he co-authored the first three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (Science, 2007), building the computational models used to identify their structures; the paper received the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize. He also catalogued the secondary building units of metal-organic frameworks (Chemical Society Reviews, 2009), a standard reference for designing the materials recognized by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Omar Yaghi's Nobel lecture lists him among the group's former visiting students.

He earned his M.Sc. (2010) and Ph.D. (2012) at Caltech with William A. Goddard III, with a thesis on the design of molecules and materials for clean energy, catalysis and molecular machines. He then helped start the theory and simulation effort of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech and was a postdoctoral fellow with Martin Head-Gordon at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In 2015 he became an assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the FAMU–FSU College of Engineering, with affiliations in scientific computing and materials science (and, from 2018, physics) at Florida State University and as a scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. He created FSU's first courses on machine learning and quantum computing. He joined Michigan State University in 2020, where he leads the Mendoza Lab.

His research has been featured by Forbes, CNBC, public radio, MRS Bulletin, C&EN, Laser Focus World, the U.S. Department of Energy and MSUToday, and he has given 70 invited talks, including keynote lectures. He is a proponent of renaissance science: solving problems by combining fields regardless of where their traditional boundaries lie. Through his advisors, his academic ancestors include Marie Curie and Ralph Fowler, the doctoral advisor of Paul Dirac (academic tree), and a 2023 mathematics paper gave him an Erdős number of 5.

Appointments

YearsPositionInstitution
2020–presentAssistant Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials ScienceMichigan State University
2023–presentAffiliated faculty, Physics and AstronomyMichigan State University
2015–2020Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomedical EngineeringFAMU–FSU College of Engineering (Florida A&M University and Florida State University)
2015–2020Scientist, Condensed Matter ScienceNational High Magnetic Field Laboratory
2015–2020Affiliated faculty, Scientific Computing and Materials Science and EngineeringFlorida State University
2018–2023Affiliated faculty, PhysicsFlorida State University

Education and training

YearDegree or positionInstitution
2014Postdoctoral fellow, theoretical chemistry (with M. Head-Gordon)UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
2012–2013Staff scientist and postdoctoral scholarCaltech and the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis
2012Ph.D., Materials Science and Applied Physics (advisor: W. A. Goddard III)California Institute of Technology
2010M.Sc., Materials Science and Applied PhysicsCalifornia Institute of Technology
2008B.Sc., ChemistryTecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM), with two years at UCLA

Honors and awards

Front and back of the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize medal, engraved 'Awarded to Jose L. Mendoza-Cortes for an outstanding contribution to Science'.
The AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize medal (2007), awarded to the authors of the first three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks.

Professional service

Academic family tree

Academic genealogy through doctoral and postdoctoral advisors. Students who graduate from the group join both lines.

Through the Ph.D.

  1. José L. Mendoza-Cortés, Ph.D. 2012, Caltech
  2. William A. Goddard III, Ph.D. 1964, Caltech
  3. Pol Duwez, D.Sc. 1933, Université Libre de Bruxelles
  4. Émile Henriot, D.Sc. 1912, Sorbonne
  5. Marie Curie

Through the postdoc

  1. José L. Mendoza-Cortés, postdoc 2014, UC Berkeley
  2. Martin Head-Gordon, Ph.D. 1989, Carnegie Mellon
  3. John Pople, Ph.D. 1951, Cambridge
  4. John Lennard-Jones, D.Sc. 1924, Cambridge
  5. Ralph H. Fowler, who advised Paul Dirac (Ph.D. 1926)

A few more things