SRAI Annual Meeting 2026

Research offices are under more pressure than ever. Staffing stays flat while proposal volume climbs, and a fast-moving set of AI tools all promise to help. The hard part isn't finding AI anymore. It's deciding which tools are actually ready for your environment, and how to bring them in without disrupting the work your team already does.

At the SRAI 2026 Annual Meeting in Hawaii, Atom Grants CEO Tomer du Sautoy and CTO Hamilton Evans are joining a panel of research administration leaders to talk through exactly that. "Leading Research Development in the Age of AI: A Partnership Approach" runs Wednesday, October 14, from 10:15 to 11:15 AM (Session W112).

Panelists from institutions including the University of Memphis, SUNY Cortland, the University of South Florida Health, and Middle Tennessee State University will each share the real story behind adopting AI: the challenges that pushed them to look for new approaches, the criteria they used to weigh their options, and what they learned once the tools were actually in their workflows.

From the product side, a member of the Atom Grants team will offer the other half of the picture — how direct feedback from research administrators shapes the way AI tools for this community get designed and built.

The conversation centers on the questions every office is working through right now:

• How do you assess whether an AI tool is ready for your environment?
• What does a meaningful evaluation process actually look like?
• Where does AI genuinely save time, and where does it still need a person in the loop?
• How do real partnerships between institutions and the teams building these tools lead to better software?

Panelists

Tomer du Sautoy is co-founder and CEO of Atom. He grew up surrounded by research, studied physics through a master's, and moved into technology before coming full circle to build AI tools for the research ecosystem.

Hamilton Evans is co-founder and CTO of Atom. He studied chemistry and computer science at Middlebury College and began a chemistry PhD at Caltech before leaving to found Atom, at the intersection of research and technology.

Brian Evans works to boost institutional research competitiveness through capacity building, interdisciplinary team development, and funding acquisition. He spent over a decade in biologic and pharmaceutical development across academia and industry, including a research professorship in Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt.

Dominick Fantacone leads research and sponsored programs at SUNY Cortland, where he's also a Research Professor in the School of Education. A two-time recipient of the university's Excellence in Research award, he has served as PI on multi-year grants from the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation.

John Johnson serves as an Associate Director at the University of South Florida, supporting research administration across the institution.

Michelle Willard is a Pre-Award Research Administrator and leads the pre-award research administration team at her alma mater, MTSU. She came to research administration by way of a varied career as an archaeologist, marketing professional, and award-winning investigative journalist.

Say hi if you are there

Whether you're already using AI in your office or just starting to weigh your options, come join the conversation. Find us at Session W112 on Wednesday, October 14 — we'd love to connect.