Milad Abolhasani is one of 74 engineering faculty selected to participate in the Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2026 Symposium, one of the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) signature activities.

Abolhasani was recently named the Dr. R.J. Polge Term Professor for Excellence in Engineering in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is also a University Faculty Scholar.

He previously attended the 2025 Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in San Diego last June. Attendees for these symposia are nominated by engineering leaders, and selection reflects their “exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines.” Twenty-nine NC State University faculty members have been invited to attend NAE Frontiers of Engineering symposia in the 31-year history of this event.

“I am looking forward to convening with researchers who are working at the cutting edge of some of the most innovative research areas in engineering,” Albolhasani said. “At NC State, we’ve been at the forefront of developing self-driving labs. Broader adoption of these autonomous robotic labs will speed up scientific discovery across disciplines, and I am excited for opportunities for collaboration and learning from my peers at this symposium.”

The 2026 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering will be hosted Sept. 21-24 at the University of Texas in conjunction with Advanced Micro Devices in Austin. According to the release, the symposium will explore four themes:

• Innovation in Bioengineered Materials
• Compute Challenges for Artificial Intelligence
• Agriculture as a System-of-Systems: From Molecules to Markets
• Hypersonics

“The NAE’s Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Annual Symposium reflects the Academy’s commitment to elevating and connecting the next generation of engineering leaders,” said NAE President Tsu-Jae Liu in the release. “By bringing together outstanding early career engineers from many disciplines, the symposium creates the kind of intellectually rich environment where new perspectives, professional networks, and future collaborations can take root.”

Abolhasani has established himself as a leader in self-driving labs. Earlier this month, he was awarded a four-year, $20 million grant for the research initiative, Self-driving Platforms for Expedited Experimental co-Design in solution phase chemistry and materials science, or SPEED. This initiative is part of the National Science Foundation Directorate of Technology, Innovation and Partnership’s Programmable Cloud Laboratories (PCL Test Bed) program.

“The SPEED Test Bed is designed to turn self-driving laboratories from specialized research platforms into shared discovery infrastructure,” Abolhasani said in a release. “SPEED will allow researchers to compress the discovery of functional materials and molecules from years to weeks in areas such as advanced electronics, pharmaceuticals and agriculture.”