Biography
Kieron Burke is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. He received his B.A. in Theoretical Physics from Trinity College Dublin in June 1985 and his Ph.D. in Solid-State Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in August 1989, under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Walter Kohn. Burke has held various academic positions, including Professor of Chemistry and Physics at UCI since 2006, and previously served at Rutgers University in different capacities.
Burke's research primarily involves the development of density functional theory (DFT), a crucial tool for electronic structure calculations in physics and chemistry. He has contributed significantly to the understanding and advancement of DFT, authoring over 230 papers with substantial citation impact. His work in machine learning applications to DFT was recognized as a breakthrough by C&EN News in 2018. He has been honored as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, and is a member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences.
In addition to his research, Burke is actively involved in teaching and mentoring at UCI, offering courses in chemistry and physics while supervising graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. He also participates in professional service, serving as a guest editor and on editorial boards for journals like the Journal of Chemical Physics. Burke has organized and participated in numerous workshops and conferences, fostering collaboration and innovation within the scientific community.
Return to topEducation
- B.A. in Theoretical Physics, Trinity College Dublin, 1985
- Ph.D. in Solid-State Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1989
Distinctions
- Distinguished Lecturer, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NUS Singapore, 2019
- Benjamin Meeker Award, U. Bristol, 2019
- Machine learning work among Breakthroughs of the Year, C&EN news, 2018
- Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science, 2017
- Elected member of International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences, 2017
- Bourke award of the British Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017
- Fellow of British Royal Society of Chemistry, 2017
- PBE paper recognized as most cited Physical Review Letter ever, 2016
- Baker Symposium Lecturer, Cornell University, 2016
- PBE paper named 16th most cited ever by Nature, 2015
Areas of Expertise
- Density Functional Theory
- Quantum Chemistry
- Electronic Structure
- Machine Learning in Chemistry
- Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory
- Physics of Materials
- Molecular Electronics
- Semiclassical Approximations
- Transport Through Molecules
- Density-Corrected Density Functional Theory
Recent Publications
- Thais R. Scott, John Kozlowski, Steven Crisostomo, Aurora Pribram-Jones, Kieron Burke, “Exact Conditions for Ensemble Density Functional Theory”, Phys. Rev. B, vol. 109, pp. 195120, 2024.
- Redd, Jeremy J., Cancio, Antonio C., Argaman, Nathan, Burke, Kieron, “Investigations of the exchange energy of neutral atoms in the large-Z limit”, The Journal of Chemical Physics, vol. 160, pp. 044101, 2024.
- Steven Crisostomo, E.K.U Gross, Kieron Burke, “Exchange-correlation from Green's functions”, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 133, pp. 086401, 2024.
- Pavel Okun, Antonio C. Cancio, Kieron Burke, “Orbital-free functional with sub-milliHartree errors for slabs”, Phys. Rev. B, vol. 109, pp. 195156, 2024.
- Jianmin Sun, Weitao Yang, “Special issue in honor of J Perdew on 80 th birthday”, J Chem Phys, vol. 160, 2024.
- Suhwan Song, Stefan Vuckovic, Youngsam Kim, Hayoung Yu, Eunji Sim, Kieron Burke, “Extending density functional theory with near chemical accuracy beyond pure water”, Nature Communications, vol. 14, pp. 799, 2023.
- Ryan Pederson, Kieron Burke, “The difference between molecules and materials: Reassessing the role of exact conditions in density functional theory”, The Journal of Chemical Physics, vol. 159, pp. 214113, 2023.
- Okun P., Burke K., “SEMICLASSICS: THE HIDDEN THEORY BEHIND THE SUCCESS OF DFT”, Lecture Notes Series, Institute for Mathematical Sciences, vol. 41, pp. 179-249, 2023.
- Hayoung Yu, Suhwan Song, Seungsoo Nam, Kieron Burke, Eunji Sim, “DC-DFT for Open Shells: How to Deal with Spin Contamination”, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, vol. 14, pp. 9230-9237, 2023.
- Pavel Okun, Kieron Burke, “Semiclassics: The hidden theory behind the success of DFT”, Density Functionals for Many-Particle Systems: Mathematical Theory and Physical Applications of Effective Equations, World Scientific Publishing Company, pp. 179–249, 2023.
- Steven Crisostomo, Ryan Pederson, John Kozlowski, Bhupalee Kalita, Antonio C. Cancio, Kiril Datchev, Adam Wasserman, Suhwan Song, Kieron Burke, “Seven Useful Questions in Density Functional Theory”, Letters in Mathematical Physics, vol. 113, pp. 42, 2023.
- John Kozlowski, Dennis Perchak, Kieron Burke, “Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Thermal”, submitted, 2023.
- Eunji Sim, Suhwan Song, Stefan Vuckovic, Kieron Burke, “Improving Results by Improving Densities: Density-Corrected Density Functional Theory”, Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 144, pp. 6625-6639, 2022.
- Ryan Pederson, Bhupalee Kalita, Kieron Burke, “Machine learning and density functional theory”, Nature Reviews Physics, 2022.
- Suhwan Song, Stefan Vuckovic, Eunji Sim, Kieron Burke, “Density-Corrected DFT Explained: Questions and Answers”, Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, vol. 18, pp. 817-827, 2022.
- Bhupalee Kalita, Ryan Pederson, Jielun Chen, Li Li, Kieron Burke, “How Well Does Kohn–Sham Regularizer Work for Weakly Correlated Systems?”, The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, vol. 13, pp. 2540-2547, 2022.
- Kieron Burke, “Lieb’s most useful contribution to density functional theory?”, The Physics and Mathematics of Elliott Lieb, EMS Press, pp. 131–142, 2022.
- Nathan Argaman, Jeremy Redd, Antonio C. Cancio, Kieron Burke, “Leading correction to the local density approximation for exchange in large-Z atoms”, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 129, pp. 153001, 2022.
- Ryan Pederson, Jielun Chen, Steven R. White, Kieron Burke, “Conditional probability density functional theory”, Phys. Rev. B, vol. 105, pp. 245138, 2022.
- Steven Crisostomo, Mel Levy, Kieron Burke, “Can the Hartree-Fock kinetic energy exceed the exact kinetic energy?”, The Journal of Chemical Physics, vol. 157, pp. 154106, 2022.
Most Cited Publications
- J.P. Perdew, K. Burke, M. Ernzerhof, “Generalized gradient approximation made simple”, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 77, pp. 3865, 1996.
- Perdew J., Burke K., Ernzerhof M., “Erratum: Generalized gradient approximation made simple (Physical Review Letters (1996) 77 (3865))”, Physical Review Letters, vol. 78, pp. 1396, 1997.
- Perdew J.P., Ruzsinszky A., Csonka G.I., Vydrov O.A., Scuseria G.E., Constantin L.A., Zhou X., Burke K., “Restoring the density-gradient expansion for exchange in solids and surfaces”, Physical Review Letters, vol. 100, 2008.
- J.P. Perdew, K. Burke, Y. Wang, “Generalized gradient approximation for the exchange-correlation hole of a many electron system”, Phys. Rev. B, vol. 54, pp. 16533, 1996.
- J.P. Perdew, M. Ernzerhof, K. Burke, “Rationale for mixing exact exchange with density functional approximations”, J. Chem. Phys., vol. 105, pp. 9982, 1996.
- K. Burke, “Perspective on density functional theory”, J. Chem. Phys., vol. 136, pp. 150901, 2012.
- J.P. Perdew, K. Burke, M. Ernzerhof, “Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof Reply”, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 80, pp. 891, 1998.
- K. Burke, Jan Werschnik, E.K.U. Gross, “Time-dependent density functional theory: Past, present, and future”, J. Chem. Phys., vol. 123, pp. 062206, 2005.
- Felix Brockherde, Li Li, Kieron Burke, Klaus-Robert Muller, “By-passing the Kohn-Sham equations with machine learning”, 2016.
- J. C. Snyder, M. Rupp, K. Hansen, K-R. Mueller, K. Burke, “Finding Density Functionals with Machine Learning”, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 108, pp. 253002, 2012.
Contact Information
Website: https://dft.uci.edu
Email: kieron@uci.edu
Address: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, California 92697-2025
Return to topThis profile was created with the help of AI.
Last updated on 8/6/2025.