UCF Researcher to Support DOE Project Using AI to Accelerate Scientific Discovery

Scientific breakthroughs often require years of experimentation, testing and refinement before researchers can answer some of society's most complex questions. To explore how artificial intelligence can help accelerate that process, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Haonan Ling is joining the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission.

The nationwide initiative encourages interdisciplinary teams to develop new AI models and research workflows capable of addressing national challenges across fields such as advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical materials, energy and quantum information.

"The Genesis Mission harnesses the collective strengths of the nation's leading institutions across academia, industry, and government to accelerate the pace of discovery," says Winston Schoenfeld, UCF vice president for research and innovation. "UCF's participation reflects the expertise of our researchers and talented students, whose contributions will help shape AI-enabled scientific workflows and transform technological advances into real-world solutions that fuel American competitiveness."

A New Approach to Creating Fuels and Chemicals

As interdisciplinary scientific challenges become increasingly data-intensive, applying human ingenuity to advanced technologies creates possibilities to solve long-standing industry issues.

Ling's contribution to the Genesis Mission will aim to address problems with biomanufacturing by developing an AI digital twin (virtual replication). This digital twin predicts and optimizes bioprocess performance, enabling improved process monitoring, decision-making, and scale-up.

The project will also provide opportunities for UCF researchers at different stages of their careers to contribute to the work. Pinzhen Lin, who will begin a doctoral degree at UCF's College of Optics and Photonics in Fall 2026, will join Ling's research group and lead development of the project's real-time sensor, including its characterization and performance benchmarking. Jirui Fu '24PhD, a UCF mechanical engineering doctoral graduate and postdoctoral scholar in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, will also assist with the project.

"The challenge is that conventionally scaling up biomanufacturing is slow and prone to failure, creating a need for smarter tools to accelerate development," Ling says. "If successful, this project could significantly accelerate the development and deployment of sustainable biomanufacturing for fuels and chemicals, making the process faster, cheaper and less risky."

With industry-academic collaboration at the core of the Genesis Mission, Ling is working on the project with Kansas State University Assistant Professor Yian Chen, as well as the National Laboratory of the Rockies researchers Ajinkya Pal, Jason DesVeaux and Evan Komp.

A Mission With Many Benefits

Although the Genesis Mission is focused on accelerating scientific discovery, Ling believes the work has the potential to create benefits that extend beyond the research community.

"The AI digital twin framework developed here has strong potential as a commercial platform that can be adopted across a wide range of industries, from energy to materials," Ling says. "More broadly, it could lower the barriers for industrial partners to adopt bio-based processes, helping drive the transition toward a more sustainable economy."

For Ling, the research also represents an opportunity to see emerging technologies applied to real-world challenges.

"As an early-career researcher, I feel very fortunate to lead and participate in a mission of this scale," Ling says. "What excites me most is the opportunity to apply this technology to solve real-world problems, and to see how it can be integrated with the rapidly advancing field of AI."

This project will be supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science through the Genesis Mission, a Transforming Science and Energy with AI initiative.

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