For data, algorithms and trained models developed by the Olivetti group, see The Synthesis Project: A Data-Driven Framework for Materials Synthesis Discovery.


The Olivetti Group focuses on quantifying the impact of and providing strategies for increasing the resource, economic, and environmental effectiveness of materials in the context of rapidly expanding global markets. In particular, we build analytical models to understand how the characteristics of a system drive the design of materials and processes and how the characteristics of a material or process drive the design of systems.

Through collaboration with experimentalists and industrial research partners, our work links information around fundamental materials structure/property relationships with scaled economic and environmental impact.


Assessing the resource impact of recycling and material substitution

The goal of this research is to employ a systems perspective to strengthen decision-makers’ ability to predict the impacts of corporate and governmental policy in the materials substitution and recycling arenas.


Predicting impact of novel materials and processes

This work centers on assessing the environmental and economic impact of materials and processes as early in their development as possible. We leverage information along the trajectory from lab bench synthesis to prototype processing to final scaled manufacturing.


Beneficial Use of Non-hazardous Industrial Byproducts in Building Materials

The increased use of secondary (i.e. recycled) and renewable resources will likely be key in achieving sustainable materials use. Unfortunately, these strategies share a common barrier to economical implementation—increased quality variation compared to their primary and synthetic counterparts.


Evaluating the Manufacturing Scalability of Early Stage Clean Energy Technologies

During the transition from research and development to full, production scale manufacturing, technologies and processes must often be redesigned  at intermediate stages to resolve unanticipated production challenges that arise. We hope to inform the design of critical clean energy technologies in a way that accelerates their scale up.