RIT professor joins $20 million NSF project to advance chemical synthesis using AI
As part of a new $20 million National Science Foundation grant, RIT computer science professor Richard Zanibbi is using artificial intelligence to accelerate experimentation in chemistry, including finding more efficient ways to create solar cells.
Zanibbi is joining an interdisciplinary team, led by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), to create the NSF Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute for Molecular Discovery, Synthetic Strategy and Manufacturing — or the Molecule Maker Lab Institute (MMLI). The MMLI is one of five new AI institutes established by the NSF to accelerate research, expand America’s workforce, and transform society in the decades to come.
The institute will focus on developing new AI-enabled tools to accelerate automated chemical synthesis and advance the discovery and manufacture of novel materials and bioactive compounds. Researchers will use data generated from the analysis of these molecules to guide further development of synthesis planning and catalyst design tools using AI and machine learning.