On February 27th , Profess Ju Li, MIT’s School of Engineering Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering, will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and self-driving lab on the practice of research and development, in particular, clean energy research. ["Autonomous experiments using active learning and AI," Nature Reviews Materials 8 (2023) 563564; "A multimodal robotic platform for multi-element electrocatalyst discovery," Nature 647 (2025) 390-396] Rapid growth in modeling, experiment and reasoning capabilities, such as universal neural network interatomic potential (UNIP), large language model based hypothesis generation, robotic high-throughput experimentation, and knowledge-based Bayesian optimization (KABO) active learning algorithms, could usher in an era of “mass production of science”, but plenty of challenges and peril lie ahead.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynexs.2025.100117
Ju Li has held faculty positions at the Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and is presently a chaired professor at MIT. He has joint appointments in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His group (http://Li.mit.edu) investigates the mechanical, electrochemical and transport behaviors of materials as well as novel means of energy storage and conversion. Ju is a recipient of the 2005 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the 2006 Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and the TR35 award from Technological Review. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2014, a Fellow of the Materials Research Society in 2017 and a Fellow of AAAS in 2020. Li is the chief organizer of MIT A+B Applied Energy Symposia that aim to develop solutions to global climate change challenges with “A-Action before 2040” and “B-Beyond 2040” technologies.
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
February 13, 2026: Jennie Hwang: The AI Bubble Myth – Intelligence Incorporated and the Global Race
On February 13th, Jennie Hwang, CEO & Principal H-Technologies Group, will add another dimension to our discussion of AI. The question “Is AI a bubble?” has become a pervasive inquiry In recent months across global business circles and broader society. This presentation moves beyond market sentiment to analyze the technical foundations that render this era’s “boom” structurally distinct. Adopting a holistic and systematic lens, we will explore the six pillars of this new global reality and the critical component technologies propelling them forward. The session will further illuminate the potential trajectories of AI, offering nuanced perspectives into the forces shaping its evolution and the escalating global race for Intelligence Incorporated. The attached is a reprint of Jennie’s latest column on AI, which was published in the January issue of SMT007 MAGAZINE.
An International Hall of Famer of Women in Technology, Dr. Hwang’s career spans over 40 years of global-trotting experience across technology, manufacturing, and governance. She has resolved mission-critical challenges in innovation, manufacturing, and product reliability for the electronic/microelectronic packaging and Surface Mount Technology manufacturing – most notably for flagship defense programs such as the F-22 Raptor. She has served as the co-Chair of the DoD/National Academies’ Artificial Intelligence Committee and the Chair of NSF’s National AI Institute on Adult Learning review panel. She has held senior executive positions with Lockheed Martin Corp. and CEO of International Electronic Materials Corp., among others. She is also an invited distinguished adjunct Professor of Engineering School of Case Western Reserve University and serves on the University’s Board of Trustees.
An author of ten (10) internationally-used textbooks and over 750 editorials/publications, Dr Hwang is a featured speaker for global forums, including the keynote university commencements, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on emerging technologies, and the DoD Federal Women’s Program. She has received numerous honors/ awards, including the YWCA Women of Achievement Award, an Industry Week “R&D Stars to Watch”, and served on the Board of NYSE Fortune 500 companies and various civic, government, and university boards and committees.
Her academic foundation includes the Harvard Business School Executive Program and four academic degrees (Ph.D., M.S., M.S., B.S.) in Materials Engineering, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Liquid Crystal Science, respectively. Further Info: www.JennieHwang.com
An International Hall of Famer of Women in Technology, Dr. Hwang’s career spans over 40 years of global-trotting experience across technology, manufacturing, and governance. She has resolved mission-critical challenges in innovation, manufacturing, and product reliability for the electronic/microelectronic packaging and Surface Mount Technology manufacturing – most notably for flagship defense programs such as the F-22 Raptor. She has served as the co-Chair of the DoD/National Academies’ Artificial Intelligence Committee and the Chair of NSF’s National AI Institute on Adult Learning review panel. She has held senior executive positions with Lockheed Martin Corp. and CEO of International Electronic Materials Corp., among others. She is also an invited distinguished adjunct Professor of Engineering School of Case Western Reserve University and serves on the University’s Board of Trustees.
An author of ten (10) internationally-used textbooks and over 750 editorials/publications, Dr Hwang is a featured speaker for global forums, including the keynote university commencements, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on emerging technologies, and the DoD Federal Women’s Program. She has received numerous honors/ awards, including the YWCA Women of Achievement Award, an Industry Week “R&D Stars to Watch”, and served on the Board of NYSE Fortune 500 companies and various civic, government, and university boards and committees.
Her academic foundation includes the Harvard Business School Executive Program and four academic degrees (Ph.D., M.S., M.S., B.S.) in Materials Engineering, Physical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Liquid Crystal Science, respectively. Further Info: www.JennieHwang.com
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
January 23, 2026: Alain C. Briançon: The Synthetic Data Revolution Will Be Televised
On January 23rd Alain C. Briançon will join us. Alain is a senior executive and technologist specializing in the application of artificial intelligence to market research, data-driven decision systems, and large-scale commercial analytics. He currently serves as Vice President of Research and Data Science at Dynata, where he leads AI and data science across methodology, advertising effectiveness, brand solutions, feasibility modeling, and internal operations.
With more than 25 years of experience across market research, telecommunications, finance, and enterprise technology, Dr. Briançon has repeatedly built and scaled platforms that deliver measurable business impact. Achievements include the design of a global AI-powered pricing system for Profiles by Kantar , real-time churn and routing optimization systems for large consumer panels. He has led and deployed AI systems across finance, telecommunications, healthcare, and public sector domains. His work includes real-time churn reduction models for telecom customers, AI-driven automotive loan adjudication systems, and macroeconomic forecasting models used by the Bank of Canada to inform national interest rate decisions. He is the inventor on 90 issued patents, including 29 in artificial intelligence and machine learning, covering areas such as federated learning, privacy-preserving analytics, time-series modeling, machine learning governance, graph-enabled decision systems, and event-driven business optimization.
Dr. Briançon holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Outside of his professional work, he enjoys opera, travelling (at times to see operas), wine, and swimming.
With more than 25 years of experience across market research, telecommunications, finance, and enterprise technology, Dr. Briançon has repeatedly built and scaled platforms that deliver measurable business impact. Achievements include the design of a global AI-powered pricing system for Profiles by Kantar , real-time churn and routing optimization systems for large consumer panels. He has led and deployed AI systems across finance, telecommunications, healthcare, and public sector domains. His work includes real-time churn reduction models for telecom customers, AI-driven automotive loan adjudication systems, and macroeconomic forecasting models used by the Bank of Canada to inform national interest rate decisions. He is the inventor on 90 issued patents, including 29 in artificial intelligence and machine learning, covering areas such as federated learning, privacy-preserving analytics, time-series modeling, machine learning governance, graph-enabled decision systems, and event-driven business optimization.
Dr. Briançon holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Outside of his professional work, he enjoys opera, travelling (at times to see operas), wine, and swimming.
Monday, January 12, 2026
January 9th, 2026: Professor George R. Tynan: The Opportunity and Challenge of Fusion Energy
On January 9th, Professor George R. Tynan will speak with us about recent advances in fusion energy. Research progress into the controlled fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium, which powers the stars, has put mankind on the threshold of harnessing this fundamental energy source for useful purposes. In this talk, we will first summarize what fusion is, what conditions must be reached for net energy production from fusion, and why it can play a critical role in meeting humanity’s energy needs into the far future. We then discuss the two primary approaches for fusion energy production – inertial fusion, which is produced by compressing and heating the fuel with rapid and intense energy deposition in a fusion target, and magnetic confinement fusion, in which the hot fuel is held in place by carefully constructed magnetic fields. Finally, we will summarize the present status and outlook for fusion as it transitions from a basic research program into a practical energy technology in the coming decade, with a particular emphasis on the emergence of an ambitious fusion industry which has taken root in the U.S., Japan, Europe and China.
Professor Tynan received his Ph.D. in 1991 from the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at UCLA, did postdoctoral research in Germany and Princeton University, and joined the faculty at UC San Diego in 1999. At UCSD he provided the first direct experimental evidence that turbulent mixing in magnetically confined plasmas could spontaneously relax into a well-ordered state that reduced the rate of particle and heat loss from the confined plasma and then showed that the same phenomena was responsible for initiating improved confinement regimes in large-scale tokamak fusion devices. More recently he has studied the fundamental processes that degrade materials exposed to the severe fusion environment with the goal to learn how to engineer better materials to enable fusion to become a practical energy technology.
He has received a number of honors, including being named as the Kazuo Iwama Endowed Chair with rank of Distinguished Professor, American Physical Society Distinguished Speaker in Plasma Physics, Global Expert in Controlled Fusion Energy Research in the People’s Republic of China, Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Department of Energy Early Career Award. He also served in a number of leadership roles, including Department Chair, Associate Dean of Research, Executive Associate Dean, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research. He joined the MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering Department in 2025 where he is the Norman C. Rasmussen Adjunct Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering. George is affiliated with MIT Plasma Fusion Science Center.
Professor Tynan received his Ph.D. in 1991 from the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at UCLA, did postdoctoral research in Germany and Princeton University, and joined the faculty at UC San Diego in 1999. At UCSD he provided the first direct experimental evidence that turbulent mixing in magnetically confined plasmas could spontaneously relax into a well-ordered state that reduced the rate of particle and heat loss from the confined plasma and then showed that the same phenomena was responsible for initiating improved confinement regimes in large-scale tokamak fusion devices. More recently he has studied the fundamental processes that degrade materials exposed to the severe fusion environment with the goal to learn how to engineer better materials to enable fusion to become a practical energy technology.
He has received a number of honors, including being named as the Kazuo Iwama Endowed Chair with rank of Distinguished Professor, American Physical Society Distinguished Speaker in Plasma Physics, Global Expert in Controlled Fusion Energy Research in the People’s Republic of China, Fellow of the American Physical Society, and a Department of Energy Early Career Award. He also served in a number of leadership roles, including Department Chair, Associate Dean of Research, Executive Associate Dean, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research. He joined the MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering Department in 2025 where he is the Norman C. Rasmussen Adjunct Professor in Nuclear Science and Engineering. George is affiliated with MIT Plasma Fusion Science Center.
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