E567 How Frontier AI Is Accelerating Materials Discovery with 83 Sciences' Ian Naccarella

Today's guest is Ian Naccarella, CEO and Co-Founder at 83 Sciences. Founded in 2026 and backed by Y Combinator, 83 Sciences is an AI materials discovery company that transforms unpublished experimental data into searchable scientific knowledge. Its platform captures information from laboratory notebooks, voice notes and scientific instruments, helping researchers optimize experiments, accelerate materials discovery and turn overlooked data into publications, patents, commercial products and industry-academic partnerships.

Prior to co-founding 83 Sciences, Ian was an entrepreneurial fellow at MIT focused on commercializing new climate technologies with professors. He was also a strategy manager at battery materials company Sila Nanotechnologies and a consultant with Boston Consulting Group, focusing on areas such as Climate and Sustainability, Cleantech, Consumer Tech, Public Sector and Financial Institutions. Ian also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In the episode, Ian talks about:

His journey from engineering and consulting to an AI materials startup

Turning frontier AI discoveries into synthesizable real-world materials

How AI discovers enabling materials that accelerate core battery innovation

How Frontier AI links material synthesis, structure and properties

Scaling experimental data pipelines to automate materials discovery

The opportunity to build an AI science company and team from scratch

To find out more about all the great work happening at 83 Sciences, check out the website www.83sciences.ai