Steven R. Spurgeon, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Steven R. Spurgeon is an internationally recognized materials data scientist accelerating the discovery of new materials by teaching scientific instruments how to think. He founded and directs the TIME Research Group through his roles as Senior Materials Data Scientist at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) and Joint Faculty in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. He is also a Research Fellow at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) at the University of Colorado Boulder.

His group builds autonomous platforms that couple artificial intelligence with advanced characterization and materials processing, closing the loop between measurement, reasoning, and synthesis. This work underpins programs including the APEX Energy Frontier Research Center, the Transformational AI Models Consortium (ModCon), and a DOE Basic Energy Sciences program in ternary nitride synthesis, with applications spanning power electronics, microelectronics, and energy technologies.

Before joining NLR in 2024, he spent nearly a decade at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. There he led development of the Autonomous Electron Microscope (AutoEM), which was licensed to JEOL-IDES and received a 2024 R&D 100 Award. He also served as Affiliate Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Washington. His work has produced more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, licensed technologies, and several open-source software packages. His honors include the Microscopy Society of America's Burton Medal and Drexel University's 40 Under 40. He serves as Machine Learning Editor for Microscopy and Microanalysis and is a Senior Member of IEEE.

He holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University and a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University.