Saroj UpretiSelf-driving labs for materials discovery
Control room

/ control room

Walk in my shoes

My Ph.D. as a tiny game. Walk the map, step into each lab, and play through what happened there.

0 of 5 stops

Arrow keys or WASD to walk, E to step inside.
On a phone, tap where you want to go.

Hattiesburg, MS · 2017 – 2021

William Carey University

Where it started: a degree in mathematics and chemistry.

My first research project was a neural network that predicted the atomization energies of inorganic compounds.

Train a tiny neural network

Hattiesburg, MS · 2022 – now

Southern Miss · Gu Research Group

For my Ph.D. in polymer science I needed to know how processing changes a film’s structure. That takes far more samples than anyone can make by hand.

So I built robots to make them.

Run the sample line

Upton, NY · 2024 – 2025

NSLS-II · Brookhaven Lab

A synchrotron: a ring of electrons that makes X-rays bright enough to see structure a few nanometers across.

Beamtime is short, so every measurement counts.

Find where order disappears

Berkeley, CA · 2024 – now

Advanced Light Source · Beamline 7.3.3

Here the model gets to drive.

It reads every scattering pattern as it lands and picks the next sample itself.

Hit a 30 nm target

Berkeley, CA · 2026 – now

Berkeley Lab · today

Since April 2026 I’m here as an ALS Doctoral Fellow.

Next: a lab where processing, measurement, analysis and an active learner run on their own, mapping polymer blend phase behavior.

Power up the next lab