AI Science Foundry

Partnerships for Autonomous Science Workshop

Advances in automation, robotics and AI demand new approaches to the scientific laboratory. This workshop convenes leaders from the federal government, national laboratories, academia and industry to chart the partnerships needed to secure U.S. scientific leadership in the age of AI.

Through keynote perspectives, lightning talks, and moderated discussion, this workshop will present early demonstrations of integrated autonomous labs, identify emerging best practices and shared barriers, and develop new partnership opportunities—while tackling the infrastructure, interoperability, and data challenges that come with this transition.

Register for the Workshop

Workshop Organizing Committee

Theresa Mayer, Carnegie Mellon University

Eliot Eshelman, NVIDIA

Rob Moore, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Ian Foster, Argonne National Laboratory

Charles Yang, Renaissance Philanthropy

Agenda

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

8:00 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.

Arrival, Check-In, Light Breakfast


8:45 a.m. - 8:50 a.m.


Opening Remarks


8:50 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

 
Federal Agency Perspectives
  • Hal Finkel, Associate Director ofAdvanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
  • Bindu Nair, Associate Director,Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy
  • Erwin Gianchandani, Assistant Director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • Rob Saperstein, Deputy Director of the Biological Technologies Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
  • Jim Warren, Director, Materials Genome Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)


10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

 
Panel: Policy Perspectives

Moderator: Daniel Correa, Chief Executive Officer, Federation of American Scientists

Panelists:

  • Joshua New, Director of Policy Seed AI
  • Kellee Wicker,Vice President of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Space; Meridian
  • Suhas Mahesh, Program Scientist at the Center for AI & Advanced Computing, Schmidt Sciences
  • Daniel Castro, President, ITIF


11:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.


Break


11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.


Lightning Presentations on Autonomous Labs

  • Reshma Shetty, co-founder, President, and Chief Operations Officer, Ginkgo Bioworks
  • Rob Moore, Director of Interconnected Science Ecosystem and Distinguished Staff Scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Martin Seifrid, Assistant Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, NC State University
  • Adam Thompson, Head of Product Edge Supercomputing, NVIDIA


12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.


Lunch


1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.


Panel: Partnerships for Autonomous Labs

Moderator: William Chappell, CVP and CTO of the Discovery and Quantum division of Microsoft (MDQ)

  • Sudipta Sengupta, Vice President & Distinguished Scientist, Amazon AWS
  • Venkat Viswanathan, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan
  • Olga Ovchinnikova, Director of Product Management, Digital Labs, Thermo Fisher Scientific
  • Peter Beaucage, Senior Director, Materials Science, Lila


2:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.


Break


2:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.


Breakouts

  • Prioritizing Moonshot Applications
  • Public Private Partnerships
  • Dataset Generation, IP, and Data Infrastructure for Sharing
  • Funding Autonomous Lab Infrastructure


4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.


Report-out

  • Breakout leads report conclusions
  • Discuss next steps