Derek Ahneman

Dr. Derek Ahneman received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Delaware, where he conducted research on the silyl-Heck reaction in the lab of Prof. Donald Watson. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Princeton University under the supervision of Prof. Abigail Doyle. During his doctoral studies, he worked on developing nickel-photoredox catalysis and used machine learning to predict reaction yields. In 2017, Dr. Ahneman joined IBM Consulting as a Data Scientist, where he created tools for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These tools enabled FDA Clinical Reviewers to rapidly assess the safety and efficacy of new drugs and vaccines, including reviews of the COVID-19 vaccines under highly accelerated timelines. In 2023, he moved to IBM Research as a Product Manager, where his responsibilities include managing tooling in the Accelerated Discovery division and the productization of IBM Research models in chemistry and materials science. His research interests include the application of scientific AI models for materials discovery.