Karen Lei

Welcome! I am a first year Physics PhD at Stanford University, advised by Prof. Zhi-Xun Shen. I am broadly interested in quantum materials and AI for science. My research focuses on growing unconventional superconductors (nickelates) via oxide molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and studying their electronic structure using ARPES. I am also fascinated and driven by AI’s capacity to accelerate scientific discovery. To this end, I’m developing AI tools to help accelerate and automate the process of doing experimental physics. Currently, I’m co-organizing the first inaugural conference on AI and Electronic Structure, aimed at bringing together researchers working at the interface of AI and ARPES.

I received my B.S. in Physics from MIT in 2025. Previously I worked with Prof. Liang Fu in condensed matter theory, where I performed analytical calculations and developed numerical programs to study ground-state spin-texture phase diagram of the ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model. I was also fortunate to work with Prof. Isaac Chuang in experimental AMO, where I built a frequency-locking optical system to achieve long coherence times in barium ions for trapped-ion quantum computing. Midway through undergrad, I also interned at SpaceX, where I worked on projects like programming robotic arms to run automated lab tests and learned the value of automation, robotics, and building things quickly and cheaply.

My experiences across experiment, theory, and computation have shaped how I think and what I’m fascinated by. I’ve often found that some of the most interesting and challenging problems tend to sit at the at the interfaces — between fields, but also between different communities and ways of thinking. Longer term, I find myself thinking about bigger questions, like: How can we accelerate the discovery of new and useful materials? And how can AI help address bottlenecks in experimental science, or shift the way we approach scientific discovery?