Heikki Muhli joined the group in May 2019 when he started his PhD studies in Aalto University after graduating with MSc degree in Engineering Physics from the same university in 2019. For his master’s thesis, he worked in professor Tapio Ala-Nissilä’s group and calculated elastic properties of orthorhombic black phosphorus using density-functional theory and was advised by Miguel Caro. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in 2016 and for his bachelor’s thesis he worked in professor Päivi Törmä’s group in Aalto University. He performed optical measurements of individual plasmonic nanoparticles using dark-field microscopy, manufactured the samples used in the measurements in a cleanroom and carried out optical simulations based on plasmonics. His current research interests concern density-functional theory, long-range interactions in amorphous and crystalline materials and machine learning. Based on reference data from density-functional theory calculations, he is currently developing a multi-purpose machine learning interatomic potential for amorphous carbon with an emphasis on describing the long-range dispersion interactions accurately.