Revolutionizing Materials Discovery for National Security

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Morgan Trexler (second from left), program manager for Science of Extreme and Multifunctional Materials in APL’s Research and Exploratory Development Department, welcomed attendees and called for continued leadership in addressing the nation’s critical materials discovery needs.

Victor Pugliano, materials director for the Emerging Technologies Directorate, Advanced Materials Critical Technology Area, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, introduced the challenges and opportunities facing the implementation of the Materials Genome Initiative for national security applications.

The National Security Challenges panel talked about the impacts of the Era of Great Power Competition on the U.S. materials science community and defense manufacturing. Further discussions focused on the competitive posture of the U.S. defense industrial base for global competition, advancing priorities to innovate defense manufacturing, and mitigating vulnerabilities to supply chains and industrial materials production. The panel then explored how accelerated materials discovery—alloy development and production, substitutions for critical minerals, materials for nuclear power and propulsion systems, energy storage, lunar manufacturing, materials for hypersonics, and more—is needed across the Navy, Department of Energy, NASA, and defense community. The panel also described national initiatives and strategic plans focused on advancing U.S. global competitiveness through accelerating materials solutions and utilizing AI and other solutions.

Panelists

• Matthew Draper, Technical Director of Metallurgy and Manufacturing, Innovation Capability and Modernization Office, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Sustainment
• Sam Schwarm, Next-Generation Attack Submarine Program Materials Tech Lead, Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock
• Phil Kim, Program Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
• Corky Clinton, Deputy Director, Science & Technology Office, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
• Lisa Friedersdorf, Assistant Director for Microelectronics, Materials, and Critical Minerals, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

A critical step of the materials discovery process is predicting new material compositions, synthesis routes, microstructure formation, and resulting properties. The PREDICT panel addressed challenges, needs, and emerging technology advances with respect to data availability, generation and identification of candidate materials, and the ability to simulate and/or predict materials properties to ensure desired properties. Panelists discussed the importance of leveraging predictive models—built on physics-based methods and a multitude of AI approaches—for various stages in discovery ranging from theoretical to lab-scale synthesis to scalable manufacturing. They discussed impacts of innovations that are transforming the landscape and demonstrating great promise (e.g., rapid computation powered by graphics processing units [GPUs], edge computing and custom architectures, and new approaches for reconciling low- and high-fidelity data).

Panelists

• James Warren, Director, Materials Genome Initiative, National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Lori Graham-Brady, Professor and Chair of Civil Engineering, Associate Director of Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute, Johns Hopkins University
• Anirudh Kashyap, Director of Solutions Engineering, Citrine Informatics
• Yannis Kevrekidis, Program Manager, Defense Sciences Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Chris Stiles, Chief Scientist, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, APL

The MAKE panel assessed emerging technologies and solutions for the acceleration of materials synthesis and manufacturing. Reinventing synthesis approaches and augmenting them with AI and automation can enable rapid generation of materials candidates for exploration and development of novel mission-enabling materials. Innovations discussed included developing autonomous workflows from research to development to application, integrating intelligence into fabrication, creating open-source software architectures for control and automation, integrating the many heterogeneous data sources, designing for inspectability, enabling autonomous identification and mitigation of flaws, and driving down risk and variability to achieve confidence in full-scale production.

Panelists

• Tyrel McQueen, Professor and Co-Director of PARADIM, Department of Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University
• Jenn Wolk, Naval Materials S&T Division Director, Office of Naval Research
• Jason Sebastian, Executive Vice President, Market Operations, QuesTek Innovations LLC
• Rob Moore, Director for the Interconnected Science Ecosystem (INTERSECT) Initiative, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Steve Storck, Chief Scientist, Mechanical Fabrication, APL

The MEASURE panel explored ideas for reimagining and accelerating mission-focused materials characterization. Panelists explored unique solutions needed to characterize materials during development for national security applications, including measuring properties and performance in extreme environments; leveraging property proxies for material screening, especially for tough-to-measure properties; developing high-throughput testing techniques and custom-tailored tests that target mission conditions; reducing risk tolerance to accelerate materials development; and advancing workforce development in specialized areas of expertise.

Panelists

• Andy Detor, Program Manager, Defense Sciences Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
• Benji Maruyama, RX Autonomous Materials Lead, Materials & Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory
• Sal Nimer, Project Manager, Multifunctional Materials and Nanostructures, APL
• Mitra Taheri, Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Director of Materials Characterization and Processing Facilities, Johns Hopkins University, and Chief Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• Jason Trelewicz, Associate Professor, Materials Science, Stony Brook University

In the symposium’s closing call to action, Aisha Haynes, principal director for Advanced Materials, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, highlighted the urgency for U.S. innovation and importance of collaboration as we work to develop materials for national security challenges. She called on leaders to:

• Be the agents of change and deliver innovations for our warfighters
• Unify and coordinate to solve grand challenge problems together
• Be present, accessible, and engaged to ensure this community’s success