Prof Vitaliy Kurlin

I earned two 5-year MSc degrees in mathematics from Moscow State University and the Independent University of Moscow

and a PhD in Geometry and Topology in 2003. Since 2017, I have led the Data Science Theory and Applications group in the emerging area of Geometric Data Science for applications in crystallography, materials chemistry, and structural biology.

The major results are the Crystal Isometry Principle and the Principle of Molecular Rigidity, which were presented at our annual conference MACSMIN (Mathematics and Computer Science for Materials Innovation). The forthcoming events include the AMS session on Open Problems in Geometry Data Science within the Joint Mathematics Meetings on 4-7 January 2026, Washington, DC (US), and the ICERM workshop “Rigidity Theory meets Geometric Data Science for chemistry applications” on 6-10 July 2026, Brown University, Providence (US).

Our research has been funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering Industry Fellowship, New Horizons EPSRC grant, Royal Society APEX fellowship, and four Royal Society International Exchanges programmes with world leaders: Herbert Edeslbrunner (IST Austria, computational geometry), Nicholas Kotov (University of Michigan, biomimetic materials), Yoshua Bengio (Montreal, Alan Turing award 2018 - a Nobel for computing), and Simon Billinge (Columbia University, materials science, Gregori Aminoff prize 2025 - a Nobel for crystallography).