PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Michel Côté

A condensed matter physicist at Université de Montréal, Michel Côté calculates the properties of materials from quantum mechanics and has added machine learning to scale those calculations up. One of the authors of the 2020 Computer Physics Communications article on the ABINIT first-principles software package, Côté also lectured on density functional theory and ABINIT at a 2022 Université de Sherbrooke school. A postdoctoral position advertised in 2020 by the Côté group and Isaac Tamblyn's group in Ottawa covered machine-learning tools for the Raman response of 2D materials, and a 2024 paper with Olivier Malenfant-Thuot and others reached simulations of tens of thousands of atoms. In 2024, doctoral student Emmanuel Bourret, supervised by Côté, led the international team that produced C130 fullertubes, carbon molecules of 130 atoms that had existed only in theory. Côté is a professor in the Département de physique and an associate academic member of Mila; a 2026 benchmark coauthored with Yoshua Bengio compared molecular dynamics methods for ionic conductivity in lithium solid electrolytes.

Timeline

  1. March 2020

    Co-authoring an ABINIT article

    Computer Physics Communications publishes 'The Abinit project: Impact, environment and recent developments' in March 2020, with Côté among the authors. The ABINIT package implements density-functional theory and many-body perturbation theory to find properties of materials and nanostructures from first principles.

  2. 2020

    Postdoc project with Tamblyn

    Two groups, Côté's in the Physics Department at Université de Montréal and Isaac Tamblyn's in Ottawa, advertise a two-year postdoctoral position in 2020, to start no later than September 2020, on tools that predict the Raman response of 2D materials with machine learning. Electronic structure calculations train the neural networks, which then simulate large atomic systems.

  3. 2022

    Teaching DFT and ABINIT

    Lecturers at the 2022 Université de Sherbrooke school on numerical methods for quantum materials include Côté, with 'Introduction to DFT and ABINIT', and Xavier Gonze of the Université libre de Bruxelles, who lectures on ABINIT.

  4. 2024

    Supervising the C130 fullertube

    Université de Montréal physics professor Côté, a researcher at its Institut Courtois, supervises the thesis of doctoral student Emmanuel Bourret in 2024. Bourret leads an international team that produces C130 fullertubes, carbon molecules of 130 atoms that had existed only in theory, and the work earns a cover illustration in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The team calculates the electronic structure of the molecules with density functional theory.

  5. 2024

    Raman spectra with deep learning

    A machine learning workflow for the effect of defects on the Raman response of 2D materials appears in 2024 in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, with Côté, Olivier Malenfant-Thuot, Dounia Shaaban Kabakibo, Simon Blackburn and Bruno Rousseau as authors. Machine-learned interatomic potentials and the Raman-active Γ-weighted density of states method let the workflow reach simulations of tens of thousands of atoms, and it is applied to isotopic graphene and defective hexagonal boron nitride.

  6. 2026

    Force fields and lithium electrolytes

    A 2026 benchmark coauthored with Yoshua Bengio, Alex Hernández-García and others compares molecular dynamics approaches for ionic conductivity in 21 lithium solid electrolytes. Simulations driven by density functional theory and by a MACE foundation model perform comparably, and MACE needs a fraction of the computational cost. A second 2026 paper, 'Bayesian Last Layer for Neural Force Fields' with David Nitchi, Daniel T. Levy and Siamak Ravanbakhsh, gives predictive uncertainties for machine learning interatomic potentials from a single pretrained model.

  7. As of October 2026

    Professor and Mila member

    A professor in the Département de physique at Université de Montréal, Côté is also an associate academic member of Mila, with computational physics, condensed matter physics and molecular modeling as research topics. The research applies quantum mechanics to calculate the properties of materials, with work on organic materials for photovoltaics, high-temperature superconductors from first principles and nanomaterials such as nanotubes. The 2026 Université de Sherbrooke school on numerical methods for quantum materials again has Côté among its lecturers.

Career

  1. NowUniversité de MontréalProfessor
  2. NowMilaAssociate Academic Member

From the biography.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Université de Montréal. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  2. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes Université de Montréal. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.
  3. Universities (31%) and startups and other companies (25%) employ the largest shares of 2020–2026 entrantsIncludes Mila. Among 819 people whose first recorded role started in 2020–2026 and who have a known current organization, 60% work in commercial sectors (25% at startups and other companies, 23% at frontier labs and 13% at big tech, with 9 in two), and 31% work at universities, compared with 66% for earlier entrants.
  4. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Mila. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Michel Côté yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. The Abinit project: Impact, environment and recent developments | Michel Côté michelcote.openum.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Job listings | Psi-k psi-k.net. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Conférences - Écoles de pointe - Université de Sherbrooke (2022) usherbrooke.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. A New Fullertube Molecule Is Found | STATNANO statnano.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Large Scale Raman Spectrum Calculations in Defective 2D Materials using Deep Learning arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Michel Côté | Mila mila.quebec. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Coordonnées | Michel Côté michelcote.openum.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. RQMP | Corps professoral rqmp.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Conférences - Écoles de pointe - Université de Sherbrooke (2026) usherbrooke.ca. Checked 21 October 2026.