UC Davis Engineers Selected for Landmark DOE Genesis Mission Awards
Two engineering professors from the University of California, Davis, were among the recipients of the first awards through the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission — a national program leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security.
In the announcement, Under Secretary for Science Dr. Darío Gil said, “Through the Genesis Mission, we are bringing together the nation’s leading researchers, institutions, and technology partners to build the next generation of scientific capability. We look forward to seeing these teams demonstrate new research workflows that accelerate discovery and reveal what is possible when AI and science advance together.”
The program received over 5,000 applications and made just 278 awards. The funding will enable the researchers to gain access to the Genesis Mission Platform, including AI agent frameworks, advanced AI models and software. The projects bring together industry partners, collaborators from national laboratories and universities across the country.
Issac Kim, Associate Professor of Computer Science
A UC Davis project led by Isaac Kim aims to accelerate the timeline on which early fault-tolerant quantum computers can be used to address scientific problems beyond the reach of classical computation.
The goal is to apply AI to uncover a rotation gadget that outperforms all hand‑designed options, demonstrating AI’s power in quantum algorithm discovery and advancing scientific quantum advantage on early fault‑tolerant quantum computers. Lukasz Cincio at the Los Alamos National Laboratory serves as the co-principal investigator.
Mingwei Zhang, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Mingwei Zhang will serve as co-principal investigator for a project to dramatically enhance both strength and ductility of structural materials for extreme environments such as energy, aerospace and nuclear systems.
This project team proposes a closed-loop, AI-accelerated framework to design, synthesize and characterize oxygen-containing complex concentrated alloys. The project is led by Stephanie Ribet, along with co-PI Andrew Minor from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with co-PIs Brandon Bocklund and Aurélien Perron from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.