Missouri S&T researchers Dr. Gabriel Nicolosi, assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering, and Dr. Mario Buchely, Roberta and G. Robert Couch assistant professor of materials science and engineering, have been selected for a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Genesis Mission award to advance artificial intelligence-driven scientific discovery. 

Their project, “AI-enabled Digital Twin Framework for Hot Rolling Operations in the U.S. Steel Industry,” is among the first projects chosen through the DOE’s Genesis Mission, a national initiative designed to accelerate breakthroughs in science, energy and security by combining AI with advanced research capabilities. 

The project is led by Nicolosi as principal investigator and Buchely as co-principal investigator. Other co-principal investigators include Dr. Adam Meyers, assistant professor at the University of Miami; and Dr. Ana Wooley, assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Currently, Nicolosi is in Washington D.C. attending the Genesis Mission Summit on July 22. 

The Genesis Mission request for applications generated the largest response to a funding opportunity in DOE history. Following a rigorous merit review process, the selected projects represent:

• 278 awards, with 87 led by DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) National Laboratories, 168 led by universities, 19 led by companies and four led by nonprofit organizations.
• 342 participating institutions with 16 DOE and NNSA National Laboratories, 142 universities, 157 companies, 13 nonprofit organizations and 14 other institutions.

With today’s selections, research teams will begin developing and demonstrating AI-enabled scientific workflows designed to accelerate scientific discovery across DOE’s mission areas. Awardees will gain access to the Genesis Mission Platform, including AI agent frameworks, advanced AI models and software made available through industry partners, and high-performance computing resources across DOE’s National Laboratories and partner facilities. Together, these capabilities will enable researchers to rapidly design, test and refine new approaches to accelerate scientific discovery.

The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.

The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation, or generate new scientific insights.