(Press-News.org) The University of Chicago and Caltech announce the recipients of the inaugural Margot and Tom Pritzker Prize for AI in Science Research Excellence, presented during the AI+Science Conference hosted at Caltech on November 10 and 11. This new award recognizes outstanding contributions that jointly advance artificial intelligence and the natural sciences or engineering.
“We see AI as a catalyst for human ingenuity—accelerating the scale and pace of discovery in ways that can meaningfully benefit humanity. We hope that this initiative will help scientists to reach farther to explore frontiers once thought unreachable,” said Margot Pritzker and Tom Pritzker, Co-Founders of the Margot and Tom Pritzker Foundation.
In addition to these awards, the Tom and Margot Pritzker Foundation also supports trainees at various levels who are making significant contributions to the advancement of AI and science, including Jonathan Weare, recently appointed as the Pritzker Sabbatical Visitor, University of Chicago, and Max Welling, Pritzker Sabbatical Visitor, Caltech. The conference will also provide a platform for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from both institutions to present their research and foster a community of scholars implementing AI in disciplines ranging from Climate Sciences to Neuroscience.
“The Margot and Tom Pritzker Prize sets a new standard for honoring those whose innovative work bridges the critical gap between artificial intelligence and scientific exploration,” said University of Chicago Data Science Institute Faculty Director for AI Rebecca Willett. “Our aim with this award is to accelerate advancements for science and society and support transformative university scholarship.”
Each awardee is honored with a $50,000 prize, recognizing their creativity and impact in scientific AI research. The inaugural recipients are Kyle Cranmer and Deborah Marks. Cranmer is recognized for his pioneering work in simulation-based inference, which has reshaped data analysis and experimental design in particle physics and other scientific domains. Marks is recognized for her contributions to the development and application of language modeling methods to understand evolutionary data, advancing the prediction of phenotypes and molecular properties.
“I love that AI provides an expressive language to capture my intuition about a physical system”, said Cranmer. “That allows me to combine mechanisms grounded in basic principles with data-driven models that are more appropriate for complicated phenomena.”
“My lab believes we need to develop new biologically-aware AI methods that are context-driven, working iteratively hand in hand with biotechnology and medicine,” said Marks. “These new models will not necessarily be ‘plug and play’ from the large language models such as those so successful in other spheres, but will involve learning to model biological data from widely different modalities.”
This year’s prize selection was overseen by an international committee of distinguished experts, whose membership includes notable industry figures such as John Jumper, Eric Hortvitz and Pushmeet Kohli. Conference attendees join a diverse program of leading scientists and thought leaders exploring the future of AI in scientific discovery. The full conference program, speaker list, and prize selection committee can be found at https://aiscienceconference.caltech.edu/.
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Inaugural Margot and Tom Pritzker Prize for AI in Science Research Excellence announces winners at conference
2025-11-10
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