AgentForge — Hands-on Workshop on AI Agents as Scientific Research Assistants

About the Workshop

What is an AI Agent? An AI agent goes beyond a standard chatbot. It is a system that uses an AI model to pursue a goal, make decisions, plan steps, and use external tools or data sources — carrying out multi-step tasks with varying levels of human oversight.

Why AI Agents as Scientific Research Assistants? Modern research generates more data and literature than any individual can keep up with. AI agents can automate repetitive tasks, analyze datasets, synthesize literature, and connect knowledge across disciplines — while human scientists provide the judgment, verification, and context that keep research accurate and meaningful.

What You Will Learn and Do

Understand the core architecture of AI agents and their applications in scientific research

Explore core agent components, including memory, tools, skills, and multi-agent systems

Build prototype AI research assistants

Develop evaluation criteria to assess the accuracy and trustworthiness of their agents

Collaborate in a hackathon to solve domain-specific research challenges

Speakers & Tutorial Leads

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Bo An

President's Chair Professor and Head of Division of Artificial Intelligence, College of Computing and Data Science, NTU

Prof. Bo An holds a President’s Chair Professorship at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, where he heads the Division of Artificial Intelligence within the College of Computing and Data Science. His research spans multi-agent systems, computational game theory, reinforcement learning and optimisation, with applications in security, sustainability and resource allocation. He is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Intelligent Systems.

Dr. Zekun Ren

Project Leader at BEARS and Co-founder of PUDA

Dr. Zekun (Danny) Ren is a Project Leader at the Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore (BEARS) consortium and Co-founder of PUDA, an LLM and agentic AI startup. His work focuses on artificial intelligence for scientific discovery, autonomous experimentation, and materials innovation, with particular interests in agentic AI, machine learning, and self-driving laboratories. He has extensive experience developing AI-enabled approaches that bridge advanced computational methods with real-world experimental and scientific applications.

Mr. Volodymyr Iermolaiev

Co-founder and CEO of Ajentik AI, Singapore

Mr. Volodymyr “Myr” Iermolaiev is Co-founder and CEO of Ajentik AI, a Singapore-based company developing agentic AI solutions for healthcare coordination. With a background in enterprise software and AI systems, he focuses on helping patients, families and care teams stay connected during the transition from hospital to home. He leads Ajentik AI’s work in developing healthcare coordination solutions for patients, families and care teams.

Tutorial Leads

Shichuan Sun

Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow,
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

Yukun Xue

Master's candidate,
Xidian University

Dmytro Kosiachevskyi

Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow,
National University of Singapore (NUS)

Chengran Yang

Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow,
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

Martin Hoffmann Petersen

NTU AI4X Postdoctoral Fellow,
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

Nanta Sophonrat

Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow (Alum), University of Michigan (UM)

Tentative Schedule

DAY 0 Sunday, 15 November

17:00–19:30

Reception dinner

DAY 1 Monday, 16 November

9:00–9:30	Opening remarks
9:30–10:20	Keynote 1: Prof. Bo An, Introduction to AI Agents for Science
10:20–10:40	Coffee break
10:40–12:05	Tutorial 1: From Chatbot to Agent
12:05–13:05	Lunch
13:05–14:30	Tutorial 2: Agentic memory
14:30–14:35	Coffee break & Poster session start
14:35–16:00	Poster session
16:00–17:00	Travel to Chinatown
17:00–18:15	Dinner
18:15–19:30	Cultural walk guided tour
19:30–20:30	Bus back to NEC

DAY 2 Tuesday, 17 November

9:00–9:45	Keynote 2: Dr. Zekun Ren, Application of Agentic AI in materials science
9:45–10:30	Keynote 3: Mr. Volodymyr Iermolaiev, Agentic AI in healthcare
10:30–10:50	Coffee break
10:50–12:20	Tutorial 3: Agents on Platforms, MCP & Skills
12:20–13:20	Lunch
13:20–14:50	Tutorial 4: Multi-agent
14:50–15:10	Coffee break
15:10–17:00	Hackathon 1: team forming, brainstorming
17:00–18:00	Free time / Travel to dinner
18:00–19:30	Dinner

DAY 3 Wednesday, 18 November

9:00–10:30	Tutorial 5: Evaluation
10:30–10:50	Coffee break
10:50–12:20	Hackathon 2: finalize plan, 1–2 min (1 slide) presentation on topics
12:20–13:20	Lunch
13:20–14:50	Hackathon 3: think about evaluation
14:50–15:10	Coffee break
15:10–16:30	Hackathon 4: 1–2 min (1 slide) presentation on evaluation plan and progress
16:30–17:30	Travel to Lau Pa Sat
17:30–19:00	Dinner at Lau Pa Sat
19:00–19:45	Walk
19:45–20:45	Bus to NEC

DAY 4 Thursday, 19 November

9:00–10:30	Hackathon 5: work time
10:30–10:50	Coffee break
10:50–12:20	Hackathon 6: prepare demo
12:20–13:20	Lunch
13:20–14:50	Hackathon 7: prepare presentation
14:50–15:10	Coffee break
15:10–17:00	Presentations, Awards and Closing
17:00–18:00	Free time / Travel to dinner
18:00–19:30	Dinner

Organizing Team