Hugh Burton

Hugh is a specialist in molecular electronic structure theory, studying new theoretical techniques to understand and predict the properties of molecules. He holds a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at University College London and is a member of the Early Career Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation.

Hugh's primary research involves understanding the breakdown of electronic structure approximations in the presence of strongly coupled electrons and developing new theories to accurately solve the electronic structure of molecules using emerging quantum technology. He is particularly interested in understanding the energy landscape of electronic structure theory to develop new approximations for open-shell ground and excited states with unpaired electrons. He is also involved in collaborative projects that employ nonorthogonal theories to predict molecular potential energy surfaces and explore exotic quantum phenomena using non-Hermitian quantum physics. Hugh is a contributor to Q-Chem and is the primary developer for the open-source LibGNME and Quantel software packages.

Hugh previously held the Kim and Julianna Silverman Research Fellowship at Downing College, Cambridge (2023-2024) and the Astor Junior Research Fellowship at New College, Oxford (2020-2023). Hugh completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge in 2020 under the supervision of Dr Alex Thom. His thesis pioneered holomorphic Hartree-Fock theory, which allows complex analytic continuations of Hartree-Fock solutions to be constructed across potential energy surfaces, receiving the 2020 Outstanding Thesis Award in Theoretical Chemistry. In summer 2020, he was a postdoctoral research associate with Prof. David Wales, developing numerical techniques to identify and explore the energy landscape of multiple Hartree-Fock solutions.

Hugh's degrees include an MA and MSci in Natural Sciences, and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.