Victor Batista

About

Victor Batista is the John Gamble Kirkwood Professor of Chemistry at Yale University and a distinguished member of the Yale faculty since 2001. His primary research interests lie in theoretical chemistry, with additional focus on chemical biology, inorganic chemistry, materials chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and biophysical chemistry. Batista's research involves the development of rigorous and practical methods for simulating quantum processes in complex systems, with applications in photochemical processes in proteins, semiconductor materials, and environmental systems. His work aims to understand molecular mechanisms of photon energy detection and utilization, including the primary photochemical event in vertebrate vision, and to explore quantum effects such as tunneling and coherences in biological and material systems. Batista has made significant progress in establishing quantum mechanical approaches for describing the properties of complex quantum systems and investigates their applications in light harvesting, climate-related complexes, and quantum computing. He holds a B.Sc. from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and a Ph.D. from Boston University, with postdoctoral experience at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto. Batista has received numerous awards, including the NSF Career Award, Sloan Fellowship, and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and is a member of professional societies such as the American…

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Biochemistry
• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Organic chemistry
• Physics
• Photochemistry
• Engineering
• Biology
• Biophysics

Selected publications

• Electric field stimulates production of highly conductive microbial OmcZ nanowires

  Nature Chemical Biology · 2020 · 206 citations

  DOI

• <i>In Situ</i> Identification of Reaction Intermediates and Mechanistic Understandings of Methane Oxidation over Hematite: A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2020 · 157 citations

  in gas-phase heterogeneous catalysis.

  DOI

• Observation of a potential-dependent switch of water-oxidation mechanism on Co-oxide-based catalysts

  Chem · 2021 · 125 citations

  DOI

• High-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure of photosystem II from the mesophilic cyanobacterium, <i>Synechocystis</i> sp. PCC 6803

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021 · 106 citations

  sp. PCC 6803 at 1.93-Å resolution. A number of differences are observed relative to thermophilic PSII structures, including the following: the extrinsic subunit PsbQ is maintained, the C terminus of the D1 subunit is flexible, some waters near the active site are partially occupied, and differences in the PsbV subunit block the Large (O1) water channel. These features strongly influence the structural picture of PSII, especially as it pertains to the mechanism of water oxidation.

  DOI

• Quantum Machine Learning in Drug Discovery: Applications in Academia and Pharmaceutical Industries

  Chemical Reviews · 2025-06-06 · 26 citations

  reviewSenior authorCorresponding

  The nexus of quantum computing and machine learning─quantum machine learning─offers the potential for significant advancements in chemistry. This Review specifically explores the potential of quantum neural networks on gate-based quantum computers within the context of drug discovery. We discuss the theoretical foundations of quantum machine learning, including data encoding, variational quantum circuits, and hybrid quantum-classical approaches. Applications to drug discovery are highlighted, in…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Studies of Allostery between Multi-domain Proteins and Nucleic Acid Complexes

  NIH · $1.4M · 2021–2025

• NER: Modeling Quantum-coherent Electronic Excitations in Functionalized Semiconductor Nanostructures

  NSF · $100k · 2004–2006

• Computational and Biochemical Studies of Temperature Effects on Allostery in the Imidazole Glycerol Phosphate Synthase (IGPS) from T. maritima

  NIH · $289k · 2014–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Gary W. Brudvig

  Yale University

  170 shared

• Robert H. Crabtree

  Stanford University

  104 shared

• Benjamin Rudshteyn

  Schrodinger (United States)

  85 shared

• Ivan Rivalta

  68 shared

• Ke Yang

  57 shared

• Charles A. Schmuttenmaer

  Yale University

  53 shared

• George P. Lisi

  Providence College

  42 shared

• Mehmed Z. Ertem

  Brookhaven National Laboratory

  40 shared

Awards & honors

• ACS PRF-G6 Award (2002)
• Hellman Family Junior Faculty Award (2002)
• Research Corporation Innovation Award (2002)
• NSF Career Award (2004)
• NSF Nanoscale Exploratory Research Award (2004)

Similar researchers at Yale University

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