EMIT Lab — Experiments · Materials · Intelligence · Tools — develops intelligent scientific tools for materials research. We combine advanced experiments, scientific instrumentation, artificial intelligence, and materials science to make experiments themselves increasingly intelligent: able to capture important states, infer hidden information, and eventually decide what to measure or do next.
At EMIT, experiments, materials, intelligence, and tools are not separate silos. They work together as one coupled research system — enabling scientific tools that can see, understand, and act. Our research focuses on four areas:
1. Intelligent & Autonomous Instruments
Can an instrument understand what it is seeing — and decide what to measure next?
We develop intelligent microscopy and characterization systems that combine automated
acquisition, real-time analysis, uncertainty estimation, and experimental feedback.
2. Capturing Materials in Action
How do we observe the right state at the right moment?
Many important structures exist only briefly during reactions, synthesis, battery operation,
or device failure. We develop operando, in-situ, and state-triggered measurements
to capture these transient and non-equilibrium states.
3. AI for Scientific Inference
How much can we understand from limited or complicated measurements?
We develop physics- and structure-aware AI methods to recover hidden information from
electron diffraction, 4D-STEM, microscopy, spectroscopy, and other high-dimensional
scientific data.
4. Agentic Science
Can AI become an active participant in experiments?
We explore AI agents that can use scientific software and instruments, analyze results,
plan the next experiment, and collaborate with human researchers in increasingly
autonomous scientific workflows.
Where These Tools Take Us
Our core tools are tested and extended in challenging scientific problems — from autonomous materials creation and systems electrochemistry to molecular sensing, information-carrying materials, and unconventional computing.
For us, these are not isolated application areas. They are places where new scientific tools are invented, tested, and sometimes reveal entirely new ways of doing science.
Autonomous Materials Creation closes the loop between synthesis, measurement, understanding, decision-making, and re-synthesis.
Systems Electrochemistry provides a demanding real-world testbed where hidden states, multimodal signals, scientific inference, and feedback control must work together.
Matter as Information explores how materials and molecular systems can sense, encode, amplify, store, process, and transmit information — potentially creating new principles for scientific tools.
What Can a Student Do Here?
You do not need to arrive as an expert in electron microscopy, AI, electronics, or materials science.
Our projects often begin with a small but real scientific or engineering problem: write a simulation, automate an instrument, analyze an unusual dataset, build a device, develop an AI workflow, or test a new idea.
Depending on your interests, you may work on AI & coding · microscopy & imaging · electronics & instruments · materials synthesis · electrochemistry · scientific agents.
Students at different stages — from undergraduates exploring research for the first time to graduate students developing independent scientific questions — work within the same research ecosystem. New students often begin by contributing to a concrete project and, as their skills and scientific judgment grow, gradually take ownership of deeper questions.
If you are curious, willing to learn, and enjoy building things that have never existed before, come talk to us.