91视频 alum, Tao Gelernter Large (鈥�10), recently earned a Ph.D. in physical inorganic chemistry at Stanford University this summer. He successfully defended his dissertation on August 27, 2025.
After graduating from 91视频 in 2010, Tao completed his undergraduate degree at Whitman College.
His thesis focused on building the fundamental components of living systems from physical chemical precursors and quantum mechanical models to understand the logic of their molecular circuitry and functions.
Stanford professor and dissertation chair, Dr. Dan Stack, praised Tao for establishing a long list of goals 鈥� any of which could itself earn him a doctorate 鈥� and accomplishing all of them! 鈥淪ome students want to do synthesis. But Tao wrote that he wanted to do synthesis and spectroscopy and density functional theory and protein expression and genetic engineering to connect fundamental quantum mechanical principles to energy, structure, and function of metal clusters across biology,鈥� says Stack. 鈥淏ut the remarkable part is that Tao has actually done every single one of those things. And more.鈥�
Tao's next steps are:
- An interdisciplinary fellowship with the Stanford Center for Molecular Analysis and Design and program in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Medicine for Human Health.
- After that, his postdoctoral research will focus on developing high-throughput microfluidic, structural, and computational methods to map genetics to static physical structures, as well as defining their energetics and dynamic logic as nanoscale molecular machines. This approach will combine computational modeling and AI with new physical approaches in ultrafast X-ray free electron laser physics, that can provide moving pictures of molecular-scale systems at trillionths of a second (or faster) and define the evolution of their electronics and functional motions over time. The goal is a comprehensive blueprint for how these systems can be functionally engineered to outperform current human-designed systems.
Target applications include molecular-scale electronics that address the limitations of Moore鈥檚 law in semiconductor and integrated circuit design, mitigating oxidative effects of molecular aging that can lead to genomic instability in natural aging and neurodegenerative disease, addressing the requirements for energy and pollution associated with large-scale industrial transformations, and unlocking advancements in the controlled extraction of energy from air.
鈥淭ao has a truly remarkable breadth of capacity and can do anything he sets his mind to... anything,鈥� says Stack. He notes that Tao鈥檚 acumen and aptitude for engineering and design has completely redesigned their lab. 鈥淗e just loves to tinker and build and design it all, and he has transformed the lab and how we do science.鈥�
Tao is also passionate about giving back and cultivating the next generation of science leaders. He has served 鈥� and will continue serving 鈥� on the board of the Future Advancers of Science and Technology program to continue in his STEM education nonprofit work. This year his team led an expansion from Stanford University to the University of California, Berkeley, and is working to more broadly connect precollegiate students with mentorship, scholarships, research infrastructure and inspiration to achieve excellence in STEM research.
Tao鈥檚 parents, Carey Quan Gelernter and Jerry Large (former NWS Board Trustee), are retired Seattle journalists. The family previously spent a year at Stanford, where his father was a John S. Knight Fellow.