Symposium agenda
Ed Seidel - President, University of Wyoming (UW)
Parag Chitnis- Vice President for Research and Economic Development, University of Wyoming (UW)
Adrian Wisnicki, Co-Director of the Artificial Intelligence Institute, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
"Generative AI, Every Day"
Invited Speaker: Hongliang Xin, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Virginia Tech
"Advancing Interfacial Electrocatalysis for Sustainability with Artificial Intelligence"
Catalysis underpins a wide variety of industrial applications, including energy production, pollution control, and chemical manufacturing. However, traditional catalyst discovery, driven by empirical intuition and trial-and-error experimentation, struggles to efficiently explore the vast parameter space. Meanwhile, escalating global challenges such as extreme weather events, waste accumulation, and rising energy demands underscore the urgent need for innovative technologies that transform our society toward a sustainable economy. In this talk, we present an artificial intelligence (AI) framework that redefines our strategic thinking of catalytic processes at complex interfaces. Specifically, we integrate deep learning algorithms with domain knowledge for mechanistically interpretable materials design and optimization. We demonstrate this approach with sustainable carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen cycles, particularly focusing on ammonia electrooxidation for fuel cells, water oxidation for clean hydrogen, and nitrate electrolysis for green ammonia synthesis. I will further discuss the emerging paradigm of agentic science, where AI systems autonomously generate hypotheses, design experiments, and refine models in closed-loop workflows. This approach points toward self-improving platforms for energy materials discovery, offering a pathway to more rapid and sustainable innovation across chemical and materials sciences.
15 minute break
Invited Speaker: Sruti Das Choudhury, Research Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources & School of Computing, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Omer Rana, Professor of Performance Engineering, Cardiff University
"Beyond Digital Humanities: a Path to AI-Inspired Creativity"
Invited Speaker: Mike Gutman, Senior Program Manager, Tech Workforce, Center on Rural Innovation
Invited Speaker: Lee Spangler, Director of the Energy Research Institute, Montana State University
15 minute break
Invited Speaker: Eric Newkirk, Principal Wildlife Biologist, Wyoming Game & Fish Department
Posters from SI research center researchers and students, as well as SI service centers (including the Center for Advanced Scientific Instrumentation (CASI), the Plant Growth & Phenotyping Facility (PGPF), and the Model Organism Research Facility (MORF)) & educational programs (including the Learning Actively Mentoring Program (LAMP), the Wyoming Research Scholars Program (WRSP), the Science Initiative Roadshow, and Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs).
