FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards Event

March 3, 2026

Join us for the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards Event!

Come and be part of a full‑day celebration of research excellence at the FSU-AWS Researcher Showcase and Awards and learn more about the groundbreaking work happening across our campus.

RSVP

Schedule

8:30AM - 9:00AM

Check in and breakfast

9:00AM - 9:30AM

Opening Remarks

9:30AM - 10:15AM

Research Awards Ceremony

Join us for an inspiring celebration of excellence in research cloud innovation! This ceremony honors outstanding researchers who have demonstrated exceptional creativity, impact, and technical excellence in leveraging AWS cloud computing to advance scientific discovery.

Speakers: Stacey Patterson, Ph.D., Vice President of Research • Jonathan Fozard, Associate Vice President, Chief Information Officer • Bobby Sprinkle, Chief Technology Officer

10:15AM - 11:15AM

FSU-AWS Research Awards Excellence Showcase

This session spotlights award-winning researchers who have leveraged cloud technology to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and innovation. Winners will share their transformative journeys, technical implementations, and research outcomes that earned them recognition in the Research Awards program.

Dr. Guang Wang: Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science. Research topic: Generalizable and Scalable Generative AI for Worldwide Synthetic Spatiotemporal Date Generation Using Publicly Available Data

Dr. Weikuan Yu: Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science. Research topic: Scalable and Resilient Computation and Data Management for Generative AI Applications and Scientific Workflows

Dr. Raghav Gnanasambandam: Assistant Professor, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. Research topic: Multi-Physics Simulations of Metal Additive Manufacturing with Coupled Physics Informed Neural Networks

Dr. Paul Bupe: Research Faculty, Center for Advanced Power Systems. Research topic: Cloud Infrastructure for Large-Scale Training and Operational Deployment of the Predictive Intersection Safety System

11:15AM - 11:30AM

Break

11:30AM - 12:00PM

Advancing Scientific Frontiers: AWS's Latest Research-Enabling Innovations

Discover how AWS's newest services and features are revolutionizing scientific research capabilities. This forward-looking session showcases the latest AWS innovations specifically designed to accelerate research workflows, enhance computational efficiency, and reduce time-to-discovery across scientific domains.

Speaker: Solutions Architect, AWS

12:00PM - 12:30PM

Panel Discussion: Inside the AWS Lab Environments That Drive Discovery

Step inside the virtual laboratories of pioneering researchers from the AWS Researcher Accelerator pilot program. In this dynamic panel discussion, these early adopters will discuss how they architected their AWS lab environments to tackle complex research challenges.

Moderator: Michael Curry

Panelists: Balu Bhasuran, Research Faculty, School of Information, College of Communication and Information • Teja Potu, Graduate Research Assistant/Data Scientist, MagLab • Alex Townsend, Scientific Applications Specialist, ITS Research Computing Center

12:30PM - 1:30PM

Lunch & Learn: FSU AI Maker Challenge Winners

Join us for an inspiring showcase featuring the innovative solutions developed by winners of FSU's AI Maker Challenge. In this session, winning teams will demonstrate their groundbreaking AI applications across critical impact areas.

1^st Place: The Agentic Avengers

Damilare Ajayi, Juan S. Gutierrez, John Martin, Junqi Qu, Alexander Chian Hsieh Triviño

An AI application to help match researchers with grants and potential collaborators based on their CVs.

Alan Bernal, Darya Pylypenko, Wilson Shi, Hailie Tucker, Alan Villarreal

An AI scheduler website that shows students campus events and keeps track of their current schedules.

3^rd Place: NikkiJaliahEmma

Emma Berry, Jaliah Meade, Nikki Zahedi

An AI-powered 'Side Quest' app that generates personalized, budget-friendly activities near you based on your free time, interests, and location.

Honorable Mention: numa Health

Alexis Gollman

Numa is a predictive 'Bio-Operating System' that utilizes AWS-powered generative AI to synthesize a woman’s unique genetic blueprint with her real-time health data. AWS wanted to include an honorable mention because this person completed the POC without any coding experience.

1:30PM - 1:45PM

Community Choice Award & Closing Remarks

Vote live for the most inspiring ways researchers are leveraging cloud technology to transform their scientific work!

1:45PM - 4:00PM

AWS Office Hour

Come talk to ITS and AWS experts about any questions or ideas specific to your research.