Nathanael Kazmierczak

Nathanael Kazmierczak seeks to encode and process information using individual molecules instead of electronics.

As a chemistry graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, Nathanael uses molecular quantum bits to sense chemical microenvironments, gaining fundamental insights for medicine, catalysis, and energy conversion. He leverages computing and mathematics to design new experimental methods possessing superior insight, reliability, and efficiency.

Nathanael was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was homeschooled through the end of 12th grade. For his high school senior thesis, he wrote and illustrated a 206-page book titled Restoring the Creeds that examines philosophy, history, and theology.

His research abilities turned toward chemistry during his undergraduate studies, where he developed data analysis techniques for chemical equilibria in the lab of Prof. Douglas A. Vander Griend at Calvin University. After honing his computational skills in this work, Nathanael turned to experimental research, synthesizing new two-dimensional magnets and developing new electron microscopy techniques in the lab of Prof. Kwabena Bediako at the University of California, Berkeley.

Nathanael graduated from Calvin University in the spring of 2020 with a B.S. in chemistry (mathematics minor) and a B.A. in music (classical guitar). He was named a Beckman Scholar from 2016-2017, received the Goldwater Fellowship from 2017-2019, and is currently a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.

Outside of research and coursework, Nathanael enjoys playing chess and tennis, singing in choirs, and composing music that avoids major and minor keys. He likes to perform classical guitar pieces that take inspiration from Eastern string instruments and believes that C# is the best note on the guitar.