Kay Xia

Instructional

Short Biography

Xia received her A.B. in Chemistry and Visual Arts from Harvard College in 2019. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2023, jointly advised by Professors Dean Toste, Ken Raymond, and Bob Bergman, studying supramolecular host-guest chemistry. During her doctoral studies, she also conducted chemical education research with Professor Anne Baranger on equity and inclusion in graduate chemistry education. From 2024-2025, she was a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Ryan Hadt at Caltech, studying molecular quantum bits and their mechanisms of electron spin decoherence. She joined the Houk group in January 2026 as a postdoctoral scholar. As a Teacher-Scholar, Xia is committed to improving inclusion and accessibility in undergraduate education. She seeks to connect chemistry concepts to real-world impacts and aims to foster students’ science identity and sense of value alignment.

Research Interests

As a postdoctoral scholar, Xia conducts research with Professor Ken Houk, working on computational modeling of aqueous reactions in which water acts as both solvent and reactant. She is also investigating the impact of vibrational modes on the rate of intersystem crossing in organic biradical systems with Professor Miguel García-Garibay.

Honors & Awards

  • University of California, Berkeley, Benjamin Boussert Memorial Award 2024
  • University of California, Berkeley, Teaching Effectiveness Award 2023
  • University of California, Berkeley, Leadership in Graduate Diversity Honorable Mention 2023
  • University of California, Berkeley, College of Chemistry Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Scholar 2022
  • University of California, Berkeley, Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award 2022
  • University of California, Berkeley, Graduate Remote Instruction Innovation Program Fellowship 2022
  • Harvard University, Herchel Smith Summer Fellowship 2018
  • Harvard University, Harvard College Research Program 2017–2019
  • Harvard University, Harvard-Cambridge Summer Fellowship 2017

Representative Publications

 

Representative publications:

  • Lohaus, S.H.; Xia, K.T.; Cheng, Y.; Hadt, R.G. “Experimental Quantification of Spin-Phonon Coupling in Molecular Qubits using Inelastic Neutron Scattering.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 2026 148(19), 20054–20063. DOI:10.1021/jacs.6c03700 Link
  • Xia, K.T.;* Anderson, T.L.; Yu, P. “Diversity Legitimizes Science: Holding Basic Research in the Physical Sciences Accountable to the Public.” arXiv 2025, 2510.23616. Link *corresponding author
  • Nolten, M.;† Xia, K.T.;† Pezzotti, S.; Schwaab, G.; Bergman, R.G.; Raymond, K.N.; Toste, F.D.; Head-Gordon, T.; Li, W.-L.; Havenith, M. “Tuning the Free Energy of Host-Guest Encapsulation by Cosolvent.” Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2025, 27, 10120–10128. Link †contributed equally
  • Xia, K.T.;* Toste, F.D.; Francis, M.B.; Baranger, A.M.* “Integrating Social Responsibility and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into the Graduate Chemistry Curriculum.” Chemical Science 2025, 16, 4412–4429. Link *corresponding author
    • Featured in:
    • “Q&A with Kay Xia: Inaugural College of Chemistry Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholar.” UC Berkeley Catalyst Magazine, Spring/Summer 2023, p. 28–29. Link
    • Halford, B., “Teaching Chemistry Citizenship.” Chemistry and Chemical Engineering News, August 28, 2024, 102(27). Link
  • Kazmierczak, N.P.;† Xia, K.T.;† Sutcliffe, E.; Aalto, J.P.; Hadt, R.G. “A Spectrochemical Series for Electronic Spin Relaxation.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 2025. 147(3), 2849–2859. DOI:10.1021/jacs.4c16571 Link †contributed equally
  • Xia, K.T.; Bumann S.; Yates, B.; Toste, F.D.; Francis, M.B.; Baranger, A.M. “Impacts of Value Alignment for Pursuing Graduate Chemistry Research.” Journal of Chemical Education 2024, 101(12), 5160–5172. DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00299 Link
  • Xia, K.T.* “Towards Applications of Supramolecular Host–Guest Electrochemistry.” Supramolecular Chemistry 2024, 1–14. DOI:10.1080/10610278.2024.2386413 Link *corresponding author
  • Xia, K.T.; Rajan, A.; Surendranath, Y.; Bergman, R.G.; Raymond K.N.; Toste, F.D. “Tunable Electrochemical Entropy through Solvent Ordering in a Supramolecular Host.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 2023, 145(46), 25463–25470. DOI:10.1021/jacs.3c10145 Link
  • Nguyen, Q. N. N.;† Xia, K.T.;† Zhang, Y.;† Chen, N.;† Morimoto, M.;† Pei, X.; Ha, Y.; Guo, J.; Yang, W.; Bergman, R.G.; Raymond, K.N.; Toste, F.D.; Tantillo, D. J. “Source of Rate Acceleration for Carbocation Cyclization in Biomimetic Supramolecular Cages.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 2022, 144(25), 11413–11424. DOI:10.1021/jacs.2c04179 Link †contributed equally
  • Morimoto, M.;† Bierschenk, S.M.;† Xia, K.T.;† Bergman, R.G.; Raymond, K.N.; Toste, F.D. “Advances in Supramolecular Host–Mediated Reactivity.” Nature Catalysis 2020, 3, 969–984. DOI:10.1038/s41929-020-00528-3 Link †contributed equally