Conference

Critical Minerals & Materials Science Summit

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Hero image showing the CM2S2 conference branding and information

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA

The 2026 Critical Minerals & Materials Science Summit (CM2S2) is a premier interdisciplinary conference convening leaders from national laboratories, government, industry, and academia to advance the science and technology underpinning secure, sustainable critical mineral supply chains.

Recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy as a national priority, critical minerals and materials science are foundational to energy dominance, economic competitiveness, and national security. CM2S2 directly supports this mission by fostering innovation across the full research-to-deployment continuum—connecting foundational science with applied research, pilot-scale studies, and deployable solutions.

Hosted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the AVS Science & Technology Society, CM2S2 will showcase cutting-edge research in supply chain modeling, extraction and separations science, and AI-enabled autonomous research to accelerate translation from discovery to applied research and development.

Submit your abstract by March 20, 2026

Key Technical Themes

Global-to-Local Supply Chain Modeling

Featured Topics Include:

  • The CMM landscape: challenges, gaps, and opportunities for U.S. leadership
  • M²US: AI-enabled modeling to unlock critical mineral supply
  • Data-to-decision pipelines for supply chain forecasting from government, laboratory, and industry perspectives

Science for Extraction and Separation

Focus Areas Include:

  • Interfacial chemistry and transport phenomena in CMM systems 
  • Field- and flow-based separation
  • Bio-based and biomimetic approaches
  • Bridging atomic-scale understanding to applied and field-scale separations
  • Recovery from terrestrial, marine, and coastal systems
  • Recovery from waste and unconventional feedstocks (tailings, slags, brines, e-waste)

Cross-Cutting Theme: AI and Autonomous Science

Featured Topics Include:

  • AI for scientific discovery and autonomous experimentation 
  • In situ sensing and autonomous experimentation
  • Building an AI-ready CMM research ecosystem
Register here

U.S. Citizen Registration Deadline: May 1, 2026 | Non-U.S. Citizen Registration Deadline: March 20, 2026