Dr. Yan Zeng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University. Her group works on developing and leveraging robotics, AI, and data-driven tools to the synthesis of solid-state materials for energy storage and the design of chemical processes to convert abundant resources to energy materials. Before moving to Florida, Yan was a postdoctoral researcher and later a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she led the build of an autonomous inorganic solid-state synthesis laboratory (the A-Lab) with Prof. Gerbrand Ceder. Yan obtained her Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from McGill University, where she developed Li-ion cathode materials using hydrochemical synthesis and thermodynamic modeling. Yan is a recipient of the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award (2025), Material Today Rising Star Award (2025), Early Career Distinguished Presenter at MRS Spring Meeting (2025), and a Scialog Fellow on Automating Chemical Laboratories (2024). She is the Associate Editor for Cambridge Materials: Energy and an Early Career Editorial Board Member for Materials Today Energy.

Milad Abolhasani is the ALCOA Professor and a University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University, and the head of a multidisciplinary research group focused on data-rich self-driving laboratories for the accelerated discovery, development, and manufacturing of advanced functional materials and molecules. Dr. Abolhasani received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (2014) and conducted an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT, before joining the NC State Chemical Engineering Department in Fall 2016. His research interests include self-driving labs and autonomous experimentation, AI/ML-guided materials and molecular discovery, data-intensive synthesis and process intensification, and digital-twin–enabled experimentation, with applications in advanced functional materials and energy-relevant technologies. He has received several prestigious awards and fellowships, including the NSF CAREER Award, the Dreyfus Award for Machine Learning in the Chemical Sciences & Engineering, the AIChE Allan P. Colburn Award, the AIChE Catalysis & Reaction Engineering Early Career Investigator Award, and the ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering Lectureship Award. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Flow Chemistry Society.

E-mail: abolhasani@ncsu.edu | Webpage: www.AbolhasaniLab.com

Ali Zaidi is a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching courses on energy, materials, artificial intelligence, and engineering economics.
Zaidi is an internationally renowned expert in climate innovation and investment who served, from 2022 to 2025, as the United States National Climate Advisor and head of the White House Climate Policy Office, which coordinated policy development and the U.S. government’s overall strategy on climate and clean energy. Most notably, Zaidi helped design, negotiate, and implement landmark legislation – the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the largest investment in American infrastructure in a generation, and Inflation Reduction Act, widely regarded as one of the most consequential efforts to accelerate clean energy manufacturing and innovation anywhere in the world.
During his time in the Biden Administration, from 2021 to 2025, Zaidi led on efforts to re-establish U.S. climate leadership, set a national target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent by 2030; deliver robust executive actions, including regulatory, permitting, and procurement-based initiatives; and secure the largest legislative wins on climate in U.S. history, through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Together these efforts advanced the largest annual deployment of solar, wind, and batteries; brought together the U.S. auto sector around an all-electric future; tackled super-pollutants like methane and HFCs; accelerated conservation of and investment in nature; bolstered domestic adaptation and resilience; and centered U.S. climate action around workers, communities, and more competitive industrial base. He also led on critical efforts to advance clean air and clean water – from initiatives to improve local air quality to a comprehensive strategy to remove lead pipes and paint.

In his role as National Climate Advisor, Zaidi also served as a co-chair of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, and as a member of the National Space Council, the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, the White House Task Force on AI Datacenter Infrastructure, the Council on Supply Chain Resilience, and the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force.

Zaidi joined the Biden Administration after serving as the state of New York’s Deputy Secretary for Energy and Environment and Chairman of Climate Policy and Finance, where he led the state’s efforts on climate change – driving investment into infrastructure and innovation, empowering workers and communities, and boosting economic and environmental resilience – as well as on environmental initiatives to reduce public exposure to local pollution and toxics, accelerate environmental remediation, and bolster clean water supplies.

During the Obama Administration, Zaidi served as Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy, and Science for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and as Deputy Director of Energy Policy for the Domestic Policy Council. At OMB, Zaidi led a 60-person team that was responsible for overseeing a wide array of policy, budget, and management issues across a nearly $100 billion portfolio and a number of federal agencies, including the Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and the Interior, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency. In this role, Zaidi was part of the delegation that negotiated the Paris climate agreement; developed the White House response to the Flint, Michigan water crisis; and drafted parts of the Administration strategy on topics ranging from Mars exploration to governance of artificial intelligence.

In addition to his government leadership, Zaidi has extensive experience in the non-profit, academic, and private sectors. Zaidi has advised non-profits, including as Trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation’s largest environmental non-profit organizations; Director of America’s Promise Alliance; and Co-Chair of the Aspen Institute EEP’s Strategy Group on Future of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. Zaidi has taught courses on technology policy and studied the fiscal and financial impacts of climate change as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. During that time, Zaidi also co-founded Lawyers for a Sustainable Economy, a Stanford-coordinated initiative that equips sustainability-focused startups with pro bono legal services. Zaidi has counseled the private sector, as an attorney who helped launch a sustainable investment practice focused on fund formation, M&A, and governance in the climate and clean energy arena.

Zaidi immigrated from Pakistan and grew up outside Erie, Pennsylvania. Zaidi holds an A.B. and J.D. from Harvard University and Georgetown University, where he was editor of the Georgetown Law Journal (GLJ) and executive editor of GLJ’s Annual Review of Criminal Procedure.

Adam Gormley is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University, Executive Editor of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, and co-founder of Plexymer, Inc. Prior to Rutgers, Adam was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Karolinska Institutet (2016) and a Whitaker International Scholar at Imperial College London (2012-2015) in the laboratory of Professor Molly Stevens. He obtained his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah in the laboratory of Professor Hamid Ghandehari (2012), and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University (2006). In January 2017, Adam started the Gormley Lab which seeks to develop bioactive nanobiomaterials using robotics and artificial intelligence. Dr. Gormley is currently the PI of NIH R01, R35, and R21 Awards, an NSF CBET Award, and an NSF Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) Award. He was named an INNOVATE100 innovator in New Jersey, and he is the recipient of the A. Walter Tyson Assistant Professorship, the Young Innovator Award by Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, and the Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.

Peter Beaucage is Senior Director of Materials Science at Lila Sciences, where he leads a diverse team that brings together experimental capabilities and AI within Lila's AI Science Factories to deliver Scientific Superintelligence across a broad range of materials science domains. Lila is an early-stage technology company on a mission to solve humanity's greatest challenges.

Peter spent nearly a decade at NIST building the Autonomous Formulation Lab, a self-driving laboratory program that links AI-driven experimental planning with robotic platforms and in-situ scattering to accelerate formulation discovery. The AFL uses active learning to autonomously prepare, measure, and optimize complex liquid mixtures via small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering, dramatically compressing timelines for problems ranging from surfactant phase mapping to replacing petroleum-derived ingredients with greener alternatives. Built as a radically open platform with publicly available code and hardware designs, the AFL grew into a global network of collaborators operating across neutron and synchrotron facilities in the U.S., U.K., and Europe.

He holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University, where his research focused on creating superconductors with 3D mesoscale order using block copolymers, working at the intersection of hybrid materials synthesis, synchrotron X-ray characterization, and solid-state chemistry. He received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering cum laude from the University of Cincinnati.

John Quigley is a Kleinman Center Senior Fellow and previously served on the Kleinman Center Advisory Board. He was the founding director of the Center for Environment, Energy & Economy and Lecturer in Sustainability at the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. He served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from January 2015 to May 2016, and as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources from April 2009 to January 2011. He is the first and only person in Pennsylvania history to serve as secretary of both of the state’s natural resource agencies. Quigley also served as a two-term mayor of Hazleton (PA), and as an Alternate Federal Commissioner on the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. He was the founding executive director of a non-profit economic development corporation; held a number of management positions with two industry-leading manufacturing companies in the private sector; worked for a statewide environmental NGO; was an instructor in economics at a Penn State University campus, and wrote a weekly column for a northeastern Pennsylvania newspaper. Quigley earned an M.P.A. from Lehigh University and a B.A. in economics from Bloomsburg University.