About This Event
We’re at an inflection point.
AI has gone from beating humans at chess to cracking the protein-folding problem. From life sciences and physics to chemistry and material science, we’re witnessing the earliest glimpses of a future where scientific discovery is accelerated by algorithms, guided by data, and deployed in the real world. Leading voices agree that this could be the most impactful application of AI just yet but many scientists remain skeptical.
Beneath the hype, what’s actually happening?
At AI Accelerated Science, we’re bringing together the people building at the edge of this transformation: researchers, founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of scientific discovery. Not just talking about the future, but making it real in the lab.
Join us for a candid, technical, and visionary conversation covering:
Panelists and Speakers include:
Join us for an afternoon that might just hint at the future of humanity - one experiment, one algorithm, and one discovery at a time.
Event hosted by Dunia AI
Speakers
Bharath Ramsundar
Founder, Deep Forest Sciences
panelistBharath Ramsundar is the founder and CEO of Deep Forest Sciences, which builds AI for deep technology applications, and is the lead developer of the DeepChem open source project. Previously, Bharath was the co-founder and CTO of Computable Labs, a venture backed data engineering startup. Bharath founded DeepChem while doing his PhD in computer science at Stanford university where he studied the application of deep learning methods to drug discovery. Bharath was also the co-lead creator of the widely used MoleculeNet benchmark suite. Bharath’s graduate education was supported by a Hertz Fellowship. Bharath received his BA and BS from UC Berkeley in EECS and Mathematics and was valedictorian of his graduating class in mathematics. Bharath is the lead author of “TensorFlow for Deep Learning: From Linear Regression to Reinforcement Learning”, and “Deep Learning for the Life Sciences.”
Siddharth Narayanan
Member of Technical Staff, FutureHouse
panelistSiddharth Narayanan is a research scientist at FutureHouse, focused on developing systems to automate parts of the scientific method, specifically in the context of fundamental biology research. He has recently worked on scientific reasoning models, language agents for literature research and molecular cloning, and structure-conditioned protein design. He holds a PhD in experimental particle physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a dissertation on dark matter searches at the Large Hadron Collider.
Kristin Schmidt
Strategy Assistant for Accelerated Discovery, U.S. Department of Energy
panelistKristin received her PhD in polymer physics from the University of Bayreuth, Germany and continued her career at the University of California, Santa Barbara, BASF and SLAC National Laboratory before joining IBM in 2014. Currently, Kristin is the strategy assistant for IBM Research's Accelerated Discovery Strategy with the goal to develop AI solutions to help scientific experts discover and invent faster. She is also leading the development of the Safer Materials Advisor, an AI-powered tool to identify concerning materials (e.g. PFAS) in product and processes and substitute them with safer alternatives.
Ekin Dogus Cubuk
Founder, Periodic Labs
panelistEkin Dogus Cubuk is a co-founder of Periodic Labs, a recently launched venture applying AI to accelerate discoveries in materials science. Prior to this, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, where he focused on deep learning and its applications to solid-state physics and materials science. Ekin holds a PhD from Harvard University, where he studied disordered solids and battery materials using density functional theory and machine learning. He later conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University. His recent work explores the generalization properties of large neural networks and their impact on real-world scientific challenges, from clean energy to next-generation computing.
Theofanis Karaletsos
Head of AI for Science, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
panelistTheofanis Karaletsos is currently the Head of AI for Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where he leads efforts in AI for virtual cell models and the broader AI x Science landscape. He is also a co-founder, board member, and advisor at Achira.ai, a groundbreaking company operating at the intersection of physics, AI, statistical mechanics, and biomolecular simulation for drug discovery. Previously, Theofanis served as Vice President of AI at Insitro, was a staff research scientist at Facebook, a founding member and senior researcher at Uber AI Labs in San Francisco, and a researcher at Geometric Intelligence, an AI startup acquired by Uber. His work broadly focuses on advancing machine intelligence, with an emphasis on probabilistic machine learning, deep learning, and probabilistic programming . He is particularly passionate about applying these methods to scientific domains such as chemistry, healthcare, biology, and drug discovery.
Bryce Meredig
Founder, Travertine Labs
panelistBryce Meredig co-founded Citrine Informatics in 2013, serving as CEO and later Chief Science Officer, helping to grow it into a leading provider of enterprise materials informatics software. Bryce is now an independent R&D consultant, deep tech startup mentor, and faculty member at Northwestern University. His interest spans AI, data, simulation, and automation in materials science, with research contributions in machine learning for materials design, self-driving labs, materials databases and data infrastructure. He works with technical founders and deep tech ventures, drawing on his combined technical and business background (PhD/MBA) to align cutting-edge R&D with real-world impact.
Alexander Hammer
Co-Founder, Dunia Innovations
panelistAlexander Hammer is the Co-Founder of Dunia Innovations, where he contributes to the company's initiatives in innovative technology. He has spoken at the Accelerated Science event, demonstrating his involvement in advancing scientific discussions.
