Materials-Manufacturing-Machine Learning Nexus (M3X) Conference: Athens, Georgia; 18-20 May 2025

This award provides participant support for students and young researchers to attend the Materials-Manufacturing-Machine Learning Nexus (M3X) Conference at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, 18-20 May 2025. Priority is given to participation by women and underrepresented minority groups, which promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion. The M3X conference explores research at the intersection of materials science, manufacturing technologies, and machine learning. U.S. and international researchers, faculty and scholars present their research results on advanced materials, manufacturing and machine learning. The conference impacts the materials, manufacturing and data science communities through discussions of cutting-edge research. This project benefits the nation through the education of a skilled science and engineering workforce, which is better prepared to provide transformative solutions to the challenges in their chosen fields. The conference plays an important role in supporting and sustaining machine learning-enabled advanced material discovery and advanced manufacturing, which have various important applications in many industrial sectors such as microelectronics, energy, healthcare, automotive and aerospace. This participant support is expected to benefit the students’ and young researchers’ professional, scientific, and technical development. Attendance at the conference gives the students and young faculty a broader view of advanced materials, manufacturing and machine learning technologies, their fundamentals and practical applications. The conference provides a venue for presentations and discussions on the integration of advanced computational methods with materials science and manufacturing engineering. Specifically, the discussions focus on using machine learning algorithms to optimize material properties, enhance manufacturing efficiencies, and streamline production processes. At the conference, concepts and challenges at the intersection of advanced materials, manufacturing and machine learning are identified and presented, and attendees chart new paths forward in the field and rally a new generation of researchers toward them. The conference is attended by U.S. and international researchers, which provides an opportunity for a variety of perspectives to be presented and discussed. The conference is an opportunity for participants to showcase their scientific accomplishments and interact with peers and colleagues in academia, government laboratories and industry. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.