Materials Science Research Lecture
***Refreshments at 3:45pm in Noyes lobby
Abstract:
Autonomous decision-making ‘agents', when paired with accessible laboratory automation, promise to greatly accelerate materials optimization and scientific discovery. For example, such frameworks can be used to efficiently map a phase-diagram with intelligent sampling along phase boundaries, or in ‘retrosynthesis' problems where a material with a target structure is desired but a synthetic route is not yet known. These approaches are especially promising in soft matter systems, including block copolymer self-assembly, nanoparticle synthesis, and controlled colloidal assembly. In these systems, design parameters (e.g. chemical composition, MW, topology, processing) are vast, history-dependent metastable and ‘out-of-equilibrium' structures are common, and functional properties are intimately tied to molecular design features and processing conditions. In addition, for AI algorithms to operate efficiently in these spaces, they must be ‘encoded' with domain expertise specific to the problems being tackled. This talk will cover recent advances in ‘community-driven' open hardware and software tools for accelerated materials research in polymeric and soft-matter systems including dispersions and colloids. Finally, it will outline remaining challenges in practical implementations and identify future opportunities for research.
More about the Speaker:
Prof. Pozzo graduated from CMU's Chemical Engineering PhD program in 2006 after completing thesis research with Prof. Lynn Walker using neutron scattering and rheology to discover new pathways for controlled assembly of colloids using block-copolymer micelle crystals. Her current research interests are still in the broad area of colloids, polymers and soft-matter systems. The group focuses on controlling and manipulating materials structure over broad length-scales, for applications in health, alternative energy and separations. Her group also continues to develop and use new advanced measurement techniques involving neutron and x-ray scattering. Prof. Pozzo obtained her B.S. from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. She also worked in the NIST Center for Neutron Research as a post-doctoral fellow and is currently the Boeing-Roundhill Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington where she has served since 2007. In addition to her research activities, she is dedicated to improving engineering education with course development in areas of entrepreneurship and service-oriented global engagement. You can find out more about her research by exploring the group's website and her Google Scholar bibliography.