The School of Data Science is pleased to announce Associate Professor of Data Science Stephen Baek is the recipient of a $1.6 million NSF grant, one of 37 new Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) awards. Baek will serve as principal investigator on the grant which will explore material innovations.

Baek summarizes, “This multidisciplinary project will harness recent innovations in artificial intelligence to establish a novel design and discovery cycle for complex materials. This project will create new methodologies through which human materials scientists and AI will collaborate to discover optimal microstructural designs of such complex materials for targeted properties and performance.”

The project, titled “DMREF: Physics-informed Meta-learning for Design of Complex Materials,” joins three researchers from across multiple disciplines, including mechanical engineering, industrial and systems engineering, and data science. They will use AI and machine learning to discover innovative new materials that will significantly accelerate the discovery process and reduce cost and labor.

“There are enormous opportunities and needs for next-generation materials,” explained Baek. “Our research will use AI-driven design frameworks that will be easily scalable and applicable to a broad range of complex materials.” He predicts that by providing an accelerated discovery cycle and reduced costs, the design framework will directly benefit the U.S. materials and manufacturing industries. “Our goal is to contribute to the safety, national security, and technological advancement of society.”

Baek is an applied geometer, scientist, and entrepreneur. He studies the space of shapes using machine learning. Baek’s educational background is in mechanical and aerospace engineering. Prior to joining UVA in 2021, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, where he taught courses on deep learning. There, he also founded and directed the Visual Intelligence Laboratory, which conducts fundamental research in computational geometry, vision, and machine learning. Baek’s research interests include geometric data analysis, geometric deep learning, scientific machine learning, and data-driven design.

Baek holds a PH.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Seoul National University and a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Seoul National University.

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Stephen Baek receives NSF grant to study material innovations using AI and machine learning

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