Members of the SARA team are pictured in Duffield Hall. From left: Duncan Sutherland, Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering; Carla Gomes, professor of computer science; Mike Thompson, professor of materials science and engineering; and Sebastian Ament, Ph.D. student in computer science. When a master chef develops a new cake recipe, she doesn't try every conceivable combination of ingredients to see which one works best. The chef uses prior baking knowledge and basic principles to more efficiently search for that winning formula. Materials scientists use a similar method in searching for novel materials with unique properties in fields such as renewable energy and microelectronics.

When a master chef develops a new cake recipe, she doesn't try every conceivable combination of ingredients to see which one works best. The chef uses prior baking knowledge and basic principles to more efficiently search for that winning formula. Materials scientists use a similar method in searching for novel materials with unique properties in fields such as renewable energy and microelectronics. And a new artificial intelligence tool developed by Cornell researchers promises to rapidly explore and identify what it takes to "whip up" new materials. SARA (the Scientific Autonomous Reasoning Agent) integrates robotic materials synthesis and characterization, along with a hierarchy of artificial intelligence and active learning methods, to efficiently reveal the structure of complex processing phase diagrams, making materials discovery vastly quicker.

When a master chef develops a new cake recipe, she doesn't try every conceivable combination of ingredients to see which one works best. The chef uses prior baking knowledge and basic principles to more efficiently search for that winning formula. Materials scientists use a similar method in searching for novel materials with unique properties in fields such as renewable energy and microelectronics. And a new artificial intelligence tool developed by Cornell researchers promises to rapidly explore and identify what it takes to "whip up" new materials. SARA (the Scientific Autonomous Reasoning Agent) integrates robotic materials synthesis and characterization, along with a hierarchy of artificial intelligence and active learning methods, to efficiently reveal the structure of complex processing phase diagrams, making materials discovery vastly quicker.