Tianfan Fu

Fu Tianfan (符天凡) is a rising-star AI researcher who left his tenure-track assistant professorship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in December 2024 to join Nanjing University's School of Computer Science as an associate professor. His work focuses on applying artificial intelligence to drug discovery and materials development.

Fu received his PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2023, after which he briefly worked as a postdoctoral researcher before joining Rensselaer. At just 32 years old at the time of his move, he said China's growing investment in higher education had created unprecedented opportunities for young scientists, and that being closer to family after years abroad was also a major factor.

At Nanjing University, Fu is building an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, chemists, biologists, and pharmacologists to accelerate drug development using AI, aiming to shorten development timelines and reduce the cost of bringing new drugs to market through collaboration with pharmaceutical companies.