The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Materials and Manufacturing
Directorate, together with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, has
awarded a multi-million-dollar cooperative agreement to Carnegie Mellon
University to create a materials-focused Center of Excellence.
With a 50 percent match from CMU, the Center of Excellence will
fund cutting-edge research and develop Ph.D. students in an emerging area of
materials science: using artificial intelligence and machine learning to
discover, analyze, design and develop both existing and new high-tech
materials.
“This is a joint effort
between AFRL’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate and AFOSR,” said AFRL
project manager Sean Donegan. He went on to explain that in creating the Center
of Excellence, AFRL is hoping to develop its own future workforce. “We are
funding Ph.D. students to do their research in areas we think are important
skills that will be especially useful for AFRL.”
According to Donegan, this
Center of Excellence is unique in that the funding agency, AFRL, is also an
active member of the team. “There will be significant collaboration between
AFRL and the CMU students,” said Donegan. “Student researchers will spend their
summers onsite at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and AFRL scientists will, in
turn, spend time at CMU throughout the academic year.”
“We’re very interested in expanding the horizons for materials research by utilizing and developing new techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Donegan.
Source: AFRL
By Loren Blinde
December 31, 2019
