Emory physicists Justin Barton and Ilya Nemenman will lead a team through the U.S. Department of Energy that uses artificial intelligence to advance understanding of plasma fluid dynamics, from the lab to space.‘■ Genesis’ mission: Transform science and energy with AI.
The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the Department of Energy (DOE) that is building the world’s most powerful integrated scientific discovery platform. By bringing together government, industry, academia, and philanthropy, we are accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security through new platforms that combine AI, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific instruments.
The Emory researchers’ work has been selected by the DOE for a Phase 1 Request for Application (RFA) award in the Genesis Mission Program. The first round of RFA awards, announced July 22 during the first Genesis Mission Summit in Washington, DC, includes nearly 300 projects across all 50 states.
The Genesis Mission RFA generated the largest funding opportunity response in DOE history. Following a rigorous merit review process, the selected projects are:
- Of the 278 awards, 87 were DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) national laboratory-sponsored awards, 168 were university-sponsored, 19 were industry-sponsored, and four were nonprofit-sponsored.
- 342 participating institutions: 16 DOE and NNSA national laboratories, 142 universities, 157 companies, 13 nonprofit organizations, and 14 other institutions.
The summit brought together representatives from the teams selected as Phase 1 RFA recipients, heads of U.S. government agencies, members of Congress, and scientific and industry leaders from across the United States to celebrate the scope and ambition of the Genesis mission.
Emory physicists’ research matches university research AI.Humanity Initiativewas launched in 2022 to promote the responsible development of artificial intelligence and ensure that it serves humanity, said Provost Badia Ahad, executive vice president for academic affairs.
“Emory is proud to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy to apply AI to our nation’s most complex scientific challenges,” said Ahad. “Justin Barton and Ilya Nemenman’s groundbreaking research demonstrates the extraordinary potential of AI to deepen our understanding of the natural world by uncovering new physical laws and scientific insights that may remain hidden.
“This recognition reflects the quality of Emory University’s academics, and we are excited to see what their team will accomplish in the first phase of the Genesis mission.”
Exploring the power of plasma
Plasma (the superheated, ionized gas that lights up stars) is the most abundant form of matter in the universe, but its behavior and properties are still poorly understood.
Scientists in a variety of fields study plasmas because of their importance in areas such as manufacturing computer chips, developing next-generation rocket propulsion, and exploring nuclear fusion, a potentially limitless source of energy.
Burton and Nemenman recently developed an AI method that reveals new physics in a dusty plasma laboratory system. This research won the National Academy of Sciences’ 2025 Cozzarelli Award. This award is given annually to one paper in the mathematics and physical sciences for outstanding scientific excellence and originality.
“We are now building on that work,” says Burton, Winship Distinguished Research Professor of Physics. “We want to devise AI tools that can analyze plasma dynamics across scales, from 2,000-particle systems in the laboratory to the highly complex scales of astrophysical plasmas subjected to shock waves from phenomena such as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts.”
“The ultimate goal is to find an equivalent to the ideal gas law to describe more complex systems,” says Nemenman, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Physics. “This research not only improves our fundamental knowledge of nature, but also has the potential for many practical applications across industry and science.”
The Emory-led team includes Anatoly Spitkovsky, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. Ammar Hakim is a senior research physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a Department of Energy national laboratory focused on accelerating the development of fusion energy.
The goal of the Phase 1 RFA award is to identify promising pathways toward innovative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. The project team will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI and scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether these approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive power, enhance experimentation, and generate new scientific insights.
Winners will have access to the Genesis Mission Platform, which includes an AI agent framework, advanced AI models and software available through industry partners, and high-performance computing resources across DOE national laboratories and partner facilities. Together, these capabilities enable researchers to rapidly design, test, and refine new approaches.
DOE’s mission is to address energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through innovative science and technology solutions to ensure America’s safety and prosperity. Learn more here energy.gov.
