Stony Brook Mobilizes for National AI Research Mission

Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith addresses the SBU Genesis Mission RFA Response gathering May 15 at the Charles B. Wang Center.

When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Genesis Mission, major research universities across the United States, including the State University of New York at Stony Brook, had only weeks to do what they often spend months preparing for: identify faculty expertise across the institution, build interdisciplinary teams, align proposals with national priorities, secure external partners, manage internal review, adapt to shifting federal requirements and submit a coordinated response at scale.

Stony Brook responded with 89 proposal submissions.

That number became the focus of a May 15 gathering hosted by the Office for Research and Innovation (ORI) to recognize the principal investigators, co-principal investigators, research administrators, department staff, college and center teams, compliance staff and budget officers who contributed to the university's Genesis Mission response. The event was both a recognition of an extraordinary effort and a reflection on what the experience revealed about Stony Brook's research enterprise.

President Andrea Goldsmith and Mónica Bugallo, interim vice president for research and innovation, praised the campus-wide response as a defining example of Stony Brook's capacity to move quickly, collaborate broadly and compete for opportunities tied to the nation's most urgent scientific and technological priorities.

"I am truly in awe of the efforts of our Office for Research and Innovation and all of you," Goldsmith said. "Eighty-nine submissions. That's remarkable."

The DOE describes the Genesis Mission as a national initiative to build "the world's most powerful scientific platform," bringing together national laboratories, industry, academia and other partners to use artificial intelligence to accelerate breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security. The mission is organized around national science and technology challenges and is intended to connect supercomputers, experimental facilities, AI systems and unique datasets to address critical problems at unprecedented speed. Applicants chose between applying for Phase I or Phase II applications based on their readiness and team size with successful Phase I proposals having the opportunity to apply for Phase II in the near future.

For Stony Brook, the call arrived as both an opportunity and a test.

Stony Brook's Genesis Mission Response

The federal funding opportunity was released March 17. Stony Brook launched its limited competition March 20, closed the internal competition March 30 and submitted Phase I applications and Phase II letters of intent by May 1, following a DOE modification that added three days to the original deadline. The final response included 40 Stony Brook-led proposals and 49 proposals in which Stony Brook participated as a partner non-lead institution. All 40 Stony Brook-led applications were Phase I proposals. The non-lead submissions included 46 Phase I applications and three Phase II applications.

The breadth of the response reflected the breadth of the university's research strengths. Stony Brook-led applications spanned 16 Genesis Mission topic areas, including advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical minerals, fusion energy, quantum algorithms, quantum systems, microelectronics, data centers, autonomous laboratories, materials discovery, particle accelerators, physics, grid optimization, high-performance computing, scientific reasoning and AI for fluid flow in energy technologies.

Many of the proposals were built around new or expanded collaborations. Among Stony Brook-led applications, 28 included collaborations with Brookhaven National Laboratory, 16 involved other national laboratories, and 14 included industry partners. Ten of the industry-partnered proposals also included a national laboratory partner. External partners listed in the university's response included Ames, Argonne, Jefferson, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, Sandia, Savannah River and SLAC national laboratories, along with companies and organizations such as Amazon Web Services, Dominion Energy, Eversource Energy, GE Vernova, IBM Quantum, IBM Research, and NVIDIA.

Goldsmith emphasized that the significance of the effort extends beyond the outcome of any individual proposal.

"When I think about this milestone, it isn't just about the funding that we may or may not get from the Department of Energy," Goldsmith said. "It's about the conversations that this call for proposals sparked, the new collaborations with industry and national labs, and what that will mean for Stony Brook going forward in terms of being a national leader in using AI for research."

Mónica Bugallo, interim vice president for research and innovation at Stony Brook University.

Building New Pathways to the DOE

The Genesis Mission also opened a path for many Stony Brook researchers to engage with the DOE in a new way. According to the ORI's presentation, 15 of Stony Brook's lead proposals, or 38 percent, were led by first-time DOE principal investigators (PIs). Another 13 non-Stony Brook-led proposals, or 27 percent, involved first-time DOE PIs from Stony Brook.

Bugallo called that one of the most important takeaways from the process.

"As a PI, I know how difficult it is to start and to change the way that you operate and what opportunities you consider," Bugallo said. "You saw here the opportunity that may change how you are funding your research."

A Campus-Wide Effort

That opportunity required a significant institutional effort. ORI's research strategy team began by mapping research strengths across the university to the DOE's 26 Lighthouse Challenges and 99 focus areas. When the DOE's final solicitation arrived with changes to the expected topics, the team adapted and reworked the mapping. The university then ran a campus-wide internal competition, reviewing 52 pre-proposals with support from 10 reviewers and approving 45 Stony Brook-led submissions. Ultimately, 40 Stony Brook-led proposals were submitted.

The administrative infrastructure behind the response was equally extensive. Faculty and staff relied on the central research office to provide webinars, templates, training videos, budget guidance, one-on-one Zoom support, submission assistance and ongoing coordination across departments, colleges, centers and institutes. Teams also adapted to three DOE amendments, major changes in application structure and multiple Grants.gov outages during the final 48 hours before submission.

"This took a village," Bugallo said, noting that the 89 Genesis Mission proposals were submitted during a six-week period in which the university also processed 147 additional proposals, six more than the same period last year. In total, Stony Brook processed 236 proposals during that window.

Goldsmith echoed that message, calling staff "the unsung heroes in universities" and recognizing the extraordinary demand placed on the teams who helped faculty meet the deadline.

"Your names aren't on the proposals," she said. "The faculty members and the students are the ones that are in the articles, in the newsletters, in the posts about the great research that we do, but we could not do it without the staff."

President Andrea Goldsmith and Lav Varshney (left), Della Pietra Infinity Professor and director of Stony Brook's AI Innovation Institute.

Positioning Stony Brook for AI-Driven Discovery

The Genesis Mission aligns closely with Stony Brook's growing emphasis on AI, data-intensive discovery, quantum research, energy systems, advanced materials and large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration. It also reflects a broader shift in federal research priorities toward speed, scale, partnerships and measurable national impact.

The DOE's solicitation focused on interdisciplinary teams using novel AI models and frameworks to accelerate scientific discovery and research and development workflows. The opportunity included disciplines such as AI, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, critical materials, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, physics, quantum information science, semiconductors and microelectronics, discovery science and energy.

Phase I projects, according to DOE information shared by Stony Brook's Office of Proposal Development, are intended to design and demonstrate tangible research workflows that incorporate AI, with evaluation of the potential for "AI advantage." That may include increasing predictive power, coupling data and experiments more tightly, building new models, speeding discovery, improving experimental workflows or establishing metrics that justify further investment.

For Goldsmith, that positioning matters because AI remains in an early and consequential stage.

"AI today is very different from the AI of the past," she said. "But we really don't yet know how this tool is going to transform jobs, research, education and other aspects of how we live, work and play. It is still the early days."

That uncertainty, she added, creates an opening for Stony Brook.

"We want Stony Brook to be positioned as a leader," Goldsmith said. "Those 89 proposals submitted to the federal government show that we are a leader in how AI might be used for research."

Goldsmith connected the response to ASPIRE 2035, the long-term vision she introduced during her inauguration. In particular, she pointed to the university's ambition to be recognized as a global leader in areas where its expertise, partnerships and public mission converge.

The Genesis Mission response, she said, demonstrated something essential about Stony Brook's identity as a research university.

"It really showcased what Stony Brook as a university can do," Goldsmith said. "We can come together. We can respond quickly. We are young. We are ambitious. We are nimble."

Sustaining the Momentum

The event also focused on what comes next. Both Goldsmith and Bugallo emphasized that the process created relationships, ideas and institutional knowledge that should continue regardless of which proposals receive DOE funding. Goldsmith said the university will look for ways to sustain the collaborations that emerged, potentially through seed funding or other support.

"I want to make sure that every thread of collaboration that was supported through this process continues," Goldsmith said. "You have my commitment to make sure that the momentum you created will not go away independent of what the Department of Energy decides to fund through this."

Bugallo said the experience also offered a preview of how major federal research opportunities may increasingly operate. She noted that compressed timelines and large-scale interdisciplinary calls are likely to become more common, requiring universities to rethink how they prepare teams, support researchers and build systems for rapid response.

"We have to start getting ready," Bugallo said. "We have to start thinking about how we are going to respond to some of these calls on a regular basis."

For Stony Brook, the Genesis Mission effort was not only a proposal sprint for a single opportunity. It was a demonstration of institutional readiness, research ambition and collaborative capacity across the university.

It brought together faculty who had never before submitted to the DOE. It connected researchers with national laboratories and industry partners. It tested administrative systems under pressure. It produced new research concepts across 16 national priority areas. And it showed how quickly Stony Brook can move when a major scientific opportunity aligns with its strengths.

"What you have done went beyond my wildest expectations," Goldsmith said. "This response is truly exceptional."

For a university seeking to expand the reach and impact of its research enterprise, the Genesis Mission became more than a federal funding opportunity. It became a measure of what Stony Brook can do at scale, at speed and in partnership with the people and institutions shaping the next era of scientific discovery.

-Stephen Pallas