
Inside the DOE's Autonomous Lab for Materials Discovery - David Milsted, Lab Systems Engineer
From Discovery Engines – with Nabil by Nabil Laoudji, YesAnd Labs LLC
April 2, 2025 · 1h 30m · Season 1 · Episode 8
About this episode
David Milsted discusses his work at the A-Lab for autonomous materials discovery at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
David Milsted is a postdoctoral researcher at the “A-Lab” for autonomous materials discovery, located at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Please note: The views expressed in this video by David are his own and not those of his colleagues. See below for episode links, chapters, and our socials. Hosted by Nabil Laoudji. Support the podcast! Subscribe to our newsletter: www.discoveryengines.co . Thanks for watching 🙏🤙 Episode Links: David's LinkedIn Lawrence Berkeley National Lab A-Lab Ceder Group UC Berkeley Mississippi State University Wood Science Chapters: (00:00) - Preview & Introduction (04:37) - LBNL Fun Facts (05:40) - David’s Journey Into Lab Automation (Wood Science, Automation Engineering) (10:26) - Why Wood Science (14:54) - Journey From Brazil To LBNL (25:50) - Material Discovery Process Steps (29:37) - Predicting Materials Properties (35:07) - Synthesizing Materials With Automation (43:21) - Testing Novel Materials (44:58) - Orchestrating Automated Labs (A-Lab OS) (49:14) - Shifting From Independent to Team-Based Projects (53:28) - University-Government Lab Structure (57:41) - What Inspired A Lab’s Vision (01:02:40) - Growth in…
People in this episode
Host: Nabil Laoudji
Guest: David Milsted
Topics covered
- autonomous materials discovery
- lab automation
- material properties
- research journey
- team-based projects
- lab investment
- microscopy
Keywords
- autonomous lab
- materials discovery
- lab automation
- LBNL
- research
- wood science
- microscopy
- material properties
- team projects
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Ceder Group, UC Berkeley, Mississippi State University, Wood Science, A-Lab, Mitsubishi, Labman, MTI
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