Highlights
- The U.S. Department of Energy selected five University of Arizona projects for its inaugural Genesis Mission AI-for-science awards, announced July 22 in Washington, D.C.
- The U of A ranked in the top 4% of universities receiving Genesis awards and tied for 11th nationally across all recipients, including DOE national laboratories.
- Projects span quantum computing security, groundwater modeling, nuclear physics, protein behavior, and surface-groundwater prediction, each partnered with a DOE national laboratory.
- The university is one of only four nationwide to receive as many prime awards, with only three universities receiving more.
The University of Arizona secured five prime awards through the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, a new national program applying artificial intelligence to accelerate scientific discovery in energy, national security, and related fields. The awards were announced July 22 in Washington, D.C., as part of an inaugural round totaling 278 awards across 342 participating institutions.
The U of A placed in the top 4% of universities receiving Genesis awards and tied for 11th nationally in total awards when measured against all recipients, including DOE national laboratories, which received 87 awards. Only three universities received more prime awards than the U of A, making it one of four universities nationwide at that level.
The five funded projects, each led by a U of A principal investigator and partnered with a DOE national laboratory, cover distinct scientific domains. Marwan Krunz, Regents Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will develop physics-informed AI tools to defend AI-enabled scientific workflows against cyberattacks, with partners at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Scott Saleska, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the Center for Biosphere 2, will use AI to model how water, minerals, plants, and microbes interact beneath Earth's surface, leveraging Biosphere 2's Landscape Evolution Observatory. Pooja Siwach, assistant professor of physics, will build an AI framework to identify the most efficient classical, quantum, or hybrid computing approach for nuclear physics problems, working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Travis Wheeler, associate professor in the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy, will apply AI to predict protein movement and enzyme behavior with applications in bioenergy and agriculture, partnering with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Laura Condon, professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences, is a co-investigator on a laboratory-led Argonne National Laboratory project modeling surface and groundwater availability and flood hazards across the continental United States.
President Suresh Garimella attributed the awards to deliberate institutional investment, saying the results stem from "the intentional work of our faculty and staff who have been building AI into the fabric of how this university operates across research, teaching and learning, and operations."
David Ebert, who joined the U of A in 2025 as its first chief AI officer, is expected to play a central coordination role as the selected teams build and demonstrate AI-enabled scientific workflows. The DOE's Genesis Mission is designed to combine artificial intelligence, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific tools into what the department describes as an integrated science discovery platform.
Sources
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- aztechcouncil.org retrieved 30/07/2026 21:00
Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 30/07/2026 21:00. Every claim traces to a source.
