Aaron Kaplan
Senior Researcher at Temple University
Netherlands
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAaron Kaplan is a computer software engineer and theoretical solid-state physicist with five years of experience building and extending scientific software for electronic-structure research. Currently at Berkeley Lab after a postdoc, he specializes in density functional theory and functional design (co-developer of r2SCAN, OFR2 and TD-DFT kernels) and brings hands-on experience modifying large codes like VASP and PySCF. Fluent in Python (scientific stack), Fortran, C, and Julia, he combines rigorous computational physics with production-quality engineering—evidenced by contributions to the widely used pymatgen library improving POTCAR validation, hashing, and unit test coverage. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and pursuing a PhD at Temple, he excels at translating cutting-edge theory into robust, reproducible tools that serve the materials and quantum-chemistry communities.
5 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Physics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Physics at Temple University
Github Skills (4)
science10
python10
testing10
materials-informatics9
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
materialsproject/pymatgen
Jun 2023 - Dec 2025
Python Materials Genomics (pymatgen) is a robust materials analysis code that defines classes for structures and molecules with support for many electronic structure codes. It powers the Materials Project.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:45 reviews, 22 PRs, 143 comments in 2 years 6 months
Contributions summary:Aaron primarily focused on improving the POTCAR validation methods within the pymatgen library. They implemented new functions for POTCAR metadata checking and hashing, ensuring the integrity and reliability of materials analysis. This involved modifying existing VASP input/output modules and adding support for new POTCAR versions and formats. Furthermore, the user refactored code and added unit tests to validate the changes.
pymatgenpythonsciencematerials-sciencematerials-informatics
esoteric-ephemera/atomate2
Oct 2023 - Jan 2026
Modifications of atomate2 for MP flows
Contributions:8 PRs, 452 pushes, 45 branches in 2 years 3 months
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