Year 1
11 students- Leyan Zeng
- Yilin Ma
- Dongming Yang
- Weijie Yang
- Xinyue Bi (female student)
- Wuzhou Chen (female student)
- Xuanxuan Huang (female student)
- Hengyi Ding
- Mingxuan Li
- Wanru Jiang (female student)
- Jikai Liu
NANJING NORMAL UNIVERSITY
Machine Learning for
Real-World Science
KOMABA GrouP advances AI for Science and interdisciplinary intelligence through interpretable and verifiable methods.
AI for SCIENCEDISCOVERY
01 / ABOUT
What Is KOMABA?
Knowledge Of Machine Analogies for Boundary-spanning Abstraction
We bring machine learning into materials, chemistry, and the life sciences, where algorithms are tested on real problems and become part of scientific discovery.
KKnowledgeOOfMMachine
AAnalogiesBBoundary-spanningAAbstraction
7FacultyWeiguang Qu, Yanhui Gu, Peirong Ma
and 4 collaborating faculty members
and 4 collaborating faculty members
1PhD student
21Master's students
Across three cohorts
Across three cohorts
5+Undergraduates
One PhD student and 26 master's students from partner teams also participate in our research.
Team members
Year 2
4 students- Ningkang Peng
- Qianfeng Yu
- Chenxi Liu (female student)
- Chuanjie Cheng
Year 3
6 students- Yafei Liu
- Kun Shao
- Yifan He
- Anjie Hu
- Jiutao Zhou
- Jingyang Mao (female student)
OB · Alumni
23 alumni- Yuhao Zhang
- Jialong Li
- Linjing Qian (female alumna)
- Feng Xiang
- Xiaoyang Li
- Bingjie Ji (female alumna)
- Meng Li
- Haohui Xia
- Jiancai Wang
- Xiao Lei
- Shengjie Guo
- Ronghua Zan
- Xianfeng Zhang
- Lidong Zhang
- Yaohua Wang
- Ruiqi Bao
- Zhiquan Lan
- Qiwen Chen
- Xinyu Lu
- Yan Wang (female alumna)
- Rivita (female alumna)
- Shuang Cao (female alumna)
- Jingtao Du
Names in red: female students
03 / COLLABORATION
Foundations for Interdisciplinary Collaboration
We bring computational methods into real scientific problems, giving students hands-on experience in interdisciplinary publications, projects, and competitions.
LONG-TERM ON-CAMPUS COLLABORATION
Academician He Huang's Team
Professor Yafei Li's Team
Joint research on catalysis, proteins and drug discovery, biomedicine, and visual learning.
Prof. Yanhui Gu is a Permanent Member of the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATION VENUES
NeurIPSCVPRKDDAAAIACS Catalysis
Advanced Functional MaterialsAngewandte ChemieChinese Chemical Letters
UNDERGRADUATE ENGAGEMENT
From Reproduction Studies to Real Research
Undergraduates begin with data curation and experiment reproduction, then progress to thesis projects, papers, and competitions. Our students have won First Prize in the Jiangsu Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Awards, while a team project received a Silver Award in the provincial Challenge Cup competition.
04 / PROJECTS
Projects & Research Support
Four NSFC grants span a Key Program subproject, a Major Research Plan incubation project, a General Program, and a Young Scientists Fund, while industry collaborations connect algorithmic research with real-world validation.
KEY PROGRAM SUBPROJECT · 2021—2025
Efficient Construction of CO₂ Reduction Electrocatalysts Based on Machine Learning
Yanhui GuMAJOR RESEARCH PLAN INCUBATION PROJECT · 2024—2026
Interpretable Discovery of Catalytic Reaction Mechanisms Driven by Graph Grammars
Yanhui GuGENERAL PROGRAM · 2027—2030
Non-steady-state Phase Evolution and Complete Reaction Pathway Analysis of Cu-based CO₂RR Electrocatalysis Using Self-evolving Agents
Yanhui GuYOUNG SCIENTISTS FUND (CATEGORY C) · 2027—2029
Multi-label Zero-shot Action Recognition through Cross-level Spatiotemporal-Semantic Collaborative Modeling
Peirong Ma05 / SPACES
Research & Workspaces
From everyday on-campus collaboration to dedicated research space in Changzhou, the group provides stable work environments for different types of research.
01 / MINGLI BUILDING & INNOVATION VALLEY
On-campus research, student–faculty collaboration, and the Evolving Computational Innovation Center
02 / CHANGZHOU FUTURE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Near Changzhou North Railway Station, with 24 planned laboratories totaling approximately 1,250 m²
06 / COMPUTE
Compute Resources for Continuous Experimentation
Supporting LLM training, graph learning, scientific computing, and multimodal experiments. Resources are distributed across Mingli Building and Changzhou.
H200PROCUREMENT UNDERWAYH100L40PROCUREMENT UNDERWAY
L20RTX 5090EXPANSION UNDERWAYRTX 4090
Expansion plan: two 8-GPU H200 servers, four 8-GPU RTX 5090 servers, and two 8-GPU L40 servers are currently being procured.
07 / GROWTH
How You Grow at KOMABA
We value your willingness to learn proactively and finish what you start—not where you began.
Recognition-Driven Management
Deliver results and receive clear feedback and recognition.
Group Meetings & Interdisciplinary Discussion
Test computational methods against real scientific questions.
Multi-Mentor Collaboration & Funding Support
Connect to a research network spanning computer science, materials, chemistry, and the life sciences.
08 / JOIN US
Who We Are Looking For
Skills can be developed. Reliability, initiative, and communication are the foundations of long-term collaboration.
Integrity & Strong Communication
Be sincere and dependable, respect collaborators, and explain complex questions clearly.
Resilience Under Pressure
Keep moving through disappointing results, paper revisions, and engineering uncertainty.
Initiative
Identify problems, advance experiments proactively, and surface risks early.
PhD
Master's
Undergraduate
We welcome students from computer science, mathematics, chemistry, materials science, biomedicine, and beyond. Interdisciplinary training matters more than disciplinary labels.
WELCOME TO KOMABA
If You Want to Join,
We'll Take Care of the Rest.
Tell us about your interests, experience, and the questions you want to pursue.