Public Lecture: AI for Materials Discovery - Professor Jacqui Cole

Public Lecture: AI for Materials Discovery - Professor Jacqui Cole 

Join the Centre for Machine Intelligence (CMI) and Royce at the University of Sheffield for the first event in our flagship public lecture series. Discover how the technology behind today's AI chatbots is being unleashed to solve some of humanity's greatest scientific challenges.

Following the lecture, please join us for a drinks reception to network and continue the conversation.

Event Details:

• Date: Wednesday 10th June

• Time: 17:30 (drinks reception from 18:30)

• Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, The Diamond, 32 Leavygreave Road, Sheffield, S3 7RD

• Admission: Free (Registration required)

• Who can attend: Open to University staff, students, and the general public.

Please click here to register and secure your seat (spaces are limited).

Talk details:

New materials have underpinned every major technological leap humanity has made, and they still sit at the heart of our greatest challenges: electric propulsion, AI, power generation, energy storage, medical breakthroughs — all demand better materials. But materials are extraordinarily complex. Their usefulness depends not just on which atoms they contain, but on how those atoms are arranged — into crystals, microstructures, and patterns spanning lengthscales from the nanometre to the metre. Historically, breakthroughs have come through expert intuition and tireless laboratory work, meaning new materials can take decades to discover. 

In this public lecture, the Centre for Machine Intelligence (CMI) and Royce at the University of Sheffield welcome Professor Jacqui Cole from the University of Cambridge to show how Artificial Intelligence promises to revolutionise this process. She will reveal how the same technologies behind chatbots and language models like Claude and ChatGPT can be turned  loose on the rich and diverse history of scientific discovery, extracting insights that compress the materials discovery cycle from decades to days.

Biography:

Professor Jacqui Cole is a pioneer in using artificial intelligence to discover new materials for electronics and chemistry. She is the Sir Henry Royce Institute Challenge Lead in AI for Materials Discovery, Characterisation and Application, and Head of Molecular Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Her interdisciplinary research bridges the gap between AI and real-world laboratory breakthroughs. A lifelong learner, Jacqui holds two PhDs—one in Physics from Cambridge and one in Chemistry from Durham—alongside five Open University qualifications in fields ranging from Mathematics to Astronomy. She is a passionate advocate for open-access science, providing global researchers with the free AI tools needed to build our material future.