We showcase the potential of symbolic regression as an analytic method for use in materials research. First, we briefly describe the current state-of-the-art method, genetic programming-based symbolic regression (GPSR), and recent advances in symbolic regression techniques. Next, we discuss industrial applications of symbolic regression and its potential applications in materials science. We then present two GPSR use-cases: formulating a transformation kinetics law and showing the learning scheme discovers the well-known Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov (JMAK) form, and learning the Landau free energy functional form for the displacive tilt transition in perovskite LaNiO$_3$. Finally, we propose that symbolic regression techniques should be considered by materials scientists as an alternative to other machine-learning-based regression models for learning from data.

14 pages, 6 figures