Arizona–National Lab Days 2026
AI for Science and Engineering: Building the Genesis Workforce
November 5–6, 2026 | Tucson, Arizona
The University of Arizona Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Applied Mathematics will host Arizona–National Lab Days 2026, a two-day workshop bringing together researchers from UArizona and U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories around emerging opportunities in AI for Science and Engineering, with a particular emphasis on the DOE Genesis Mission.
The meeting grows out of a long-standing tradition of interaction between UArizona Applied Mathematics and the National Laboratories, especially Los Alamos National Laboratory. For decades, these meetings have served as a practical mechanism for creating new research collaborations, connecting graduate students with laboratory scientists, and developing pathways from university research to National Lab internships and careers. This year we are broadening the traditional Arizona–Los Alamos format to include researchers from multiple DOE laboratories and Genesis-related projects.
The central idea is deliberately bottom-up: bring together scientists who are already working on related mathematical, computational, physical, and engineering problems; give them substantial time to talk with one another; and use the meeting to initiate concrete collaborations involving students, faculty, and National Lab researchers.
The 2026 workshop will center on four broad themes—Physics; Fluids and Dynamical Systems; Engineering; and Computing and Data—with invited participants from Los Alamos, Argonne, Pacific Northwest, Sandia, other National Laboratories, and UArizona. Several speakers will present projects supported through the DOE Genesis Mission, providing a natural starting point for discussing how AI, scientific computing, mathematics, and domain science can be integrated in future DOE research and workforce development.
A particularly important objective is student engagement. The meeting is being organized in the fall specifically to help create research relationships and identify opportunities for summer 2027 National Laboratory internships, longer-term collaborations, and Ph.D. co-mentoring. Plans also include substantial discussion time and opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to interact directly with visiting scientists.
Arizona–National Lab Days 2026 is organized by the University of Arizona Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Applied Mathematics, together with National Laboratory colleagues and collaborators from across UArizona.
The broader goal is simple: use research itself to build the next generation of scientists working at the interface of mathematics, AI, science, engineering, and the DOE National Laboratory system.