Northwest alum, Tao Gelernter Large (鈥�10), recently earned a Ph.D. in physical inorganic chemistry at Stanford University this summer. He successfully defended his dissertation on August 27, 2025.
After graduating from The Northwest School in 2010, Tao completed his undergraduate degree at Whitman College.
His thesis focused on building the fundamental components of living systems from physical chemical precursors and quantum mechanical models to understand the logic of their molecular circuitry and functions.
Tao reflects on the unique academic experience at Northwest that helped prepare him for this path. "A defining aspect of my time at Stanford鈥攁nd remarkably good fit coming from Northwest鈥攈as been just how enormously interdisciplinary the environment is," he shares.
"Great power comes from connecting ideas and people and insights across fields and across the world, and from the advancements that emerge at the interfaces and intersections between. Coming from Northwest, I could not have been better prepared. More valuable than any single technical skill has been the ability to think critically and make connections across disciplines, the curiosity and confidence to always be learning something new, and the ability to engage with people and ideas across cultures and ways of thinking. I believe these are among the most powerful skills of the 21st century鈥攑articularly in an era of rapid technological and global change.
I am grateful to Northwest for fostering a rare environment where students are so steeped in genuine curiosity; take such independence and agency in learning; and develop the social and emotional fluency, interdisciplinary perspective, and cross-cultural capacity to navigate with agency, integrity, and purpose in a complex world."
Stanford professor and dissertation chair, Dr. Dan Stack, praised Tao for establishing a long list of goals 鈥� any of which could itself earn him a doctorate 鈥� and accomplishing all of them! 鈥淪ome students want to do synthesis. But Tao wrote that he wanted to do synthesis and spectroscopy and density functional theory and protein expression and genetic engineering to connect fundamental quantum mechanical principles to energy, structure, and function of metal clusters across biology,鈥� says Stack. 鈥淏ut the remarkable part is that Tao has actually done every single one of those things. And more.鈥�
I am grateful to Northwest for fostering a rare environment where students are steeped in genuine curiosity; take independence and agency in learning; and develop the interdisciplinary perspective and cross-cultural capacity to navigate a complex world. A defining aspect of my time at Stanford鈥攁nd remarkably good fit coming from Northwest鈥攈as been just how enormously interdisciplinary the environment is. Great power comes from connecting ideas and people and insights across fields and across the world, and from the advancements that emerge at the interfaces and intersections between. Coming from Northwest, I could not have been better prepared.
Tao's next steps are:
- An interdisciplinary fellowship with the Stanford Center for Molecular Analysis and Design and program in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Medicine for Human Health.
- After that, his postdoctoral research will focus on developing high-throughput microfluidic, structural, and computational methods to map genetics to static physical structures, as well as defining their energetics and dynamic logic as nanoscale molecular machines. This approach will combine computational modeling and AI with new physical approaches in ultrafast X-ray free electron laser physics, that can provide moving pictures of molecular-scale systems at trillionths of a second (or faster) and define the evolution of their electronics and functional motions over time. The goal is a comprehensive blueprint for how these systems can be functionally engineered to outperform current human-designed systems.
Target applications include molecular-scale electronics that address the limitations of Moore鈥檚 law in semiconductor and integrated circuit design, mitigating oxidative effects of molecular aging that can lead to genomic instability in natural aging and neurodegenerative disease, addressing the requirements for energy and pollution associated with large-scale industrial transformations, and unlocking advancements in the controlled extraction of energy from air.
Tao expounds on the layered interdisciplinary experiences that set the stage for his dissertation - including those at the Northwest School. "My research at Stanford has drawn as much on foundational math and chemistry as it has on principles drawn from interdisciplinary approaches unique to Northwest in areas as disparate as music, photography, and industrial design鈥攁 creative perspective that has fueled new approaches to spectroscopy, instrumentation, and quantum mechanical models," he says. "A knowledge of Mandarin and rich exposure to global history and cultures through Northwest鈥檚 humanities and international programs have built lifelong friendships and scientific collaborations alike. Fundamental has been an enduring sense of curiosity, agency, and purpose, never afraid to reach across superficial bounds."
鈥淭ao has a truly remarkable breadth of capacity and can do anything he sets his mind to... anything,鈥� says Stack. He notes that Tao鈥檚 acumen and aptitude for engineering and design has completely redesigned their lab. 鈥淗e just loves to tinker and build and design it all, and he has transformed the lab and how we do science.鈥�
Tao is also passionate about giving back and cultivating the next generation of science leaders. He has served 鈥� and will continue serving 鈥� on the board of the Future Advancers of Science and Technology program to continue in his STEM education nonprofit work. This year his team led an expansion from Stanford University to the University of California, Berkeley, and is working to more broadly connect precollegiate students with mentorship, scholarships, research infrastructure and inspiration to achieve excellence in STEM research.
"The connections and agency that grow from a broad and rigorous liberal arts education are I think as incalculable as they are invaluable, and a powerful differentiator in tackling the complex interdisciplinary challenges that face alumni in our global society today," shares Tao. "The Northwest School, its faculty, and the students it assembles have excelled at creating the kinds of connections across cultures and disciplines that allow graduates to navigate with agency and purpose in a rapidly changing world."
Tao鈥檚 parents, Carey Quan Gelernter and Jerry Large (former NWS Board Trustee), are retired Seattle journalists. The family previously spent a year at Stanford, where his father was a John S. Knight Fellow.