Bridging Instruments, Automation, and Machine Learning in Complex Scientific Workflows

Abstract:

Modern laboratories often bring together many instruments, each with its own proprietary control system and data format. While vendors provide domain‑specific solutions for their own devices, these tools do not scale to laboratories where data must move freely between heterogeneous instruments in a distributed environment. At the same time, the rise of AI - both in pattern recognition and domain‑specific reasoning - and the growing investment in self‑driving materials discovery highlight the need for equally capable, automated characterization workflows. Achieving this in complex heterogeneous cutting-edge research labs, however, presents a distinct set of challenges.

In this talk, I will discuss several efforts in laboratory integration and automation informed by our experience developing software infrastructure in the ARPES laboratory and through custom solutions built at TapyrLabs. I will outline approaches for orchestrating multiple instruments in a decentralized manner, considerations around data ethics and reproducible workflows, and our recent work in machine learning for autonomous decision-making.

Speaker Bio:

Matteo Michiardi is a Research Associate at the Quantum Matter Institute at UBC and the founder of TapyrLabs. He earned his PhD from Aarhus University, in Denmark, before joining the Damascelli group at QMI in 2016. His work focuses on the electronic structure of topological and spin‑orbit–coupled quantum materials - studied primarily through time‑resolved and angle‑resolved photoemission spectroscopy (TR‑ARPES). He currently manages the TR‑ARPES laboratory at UBC, with a broader interest in identifying materials relevant to spintronics applications. Alongside his materials research, Matteo has designed and built laboratory automation and scientific software infrastructure - an expertise he channeled into founding TapyrLabs, a start-up delivering high‑performance software solutions for experimental research.