New Center Expands AI for Better Understanding of South Florida’s Environment

Research

Nothing is more important to the South Florida community than protecting our homes and environment.  Researchers at KFSCIS and IOE are developing novel artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques for understanding and predicting the key processes affecting ocean, urban, agricultural, and natural systems, and for studying coastal environmental issues.

“I have the honor to lead a team of excellent researchers, including Co-PIs Leonardo Bobadilla, Jayantha Obeysekera, Philippe Tissot (TAMUCC), and Roy He (NCSU), as well as Senior Investigators Kevin Boswell, Todd Crowl, Wenqian Dong, Scott Graham, Dongsheng Luo, Amy McGovern (OU), and Cuong Nguyen, in establishing the South Florida Coastal Environmental Data and Modeling Center here at FIU,” stated Jason Liu. KFSCIS is also working locally in collaboration with FIU’s Institute of Environment (IoE) on this new project.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the project is an ExpandAI Partnership with the AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography (AI2ES), involving researchers from FIU, the University of Oklahoma (OU), Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMUCC), and North Carolina State University (NCSU).

Through the Center, Dr. Liu’s team will promote integrated research and educational efforts to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) techniques for understanding and predicting the key processes affecting ocean, urban, agricultural, and natural systems, as well as coastal environmental issues important to South Florida. The research will focus on foundational research in trustworthy AI to improve predictive model performance, accuracy, and reliability. These models will enable researchers to better understand factors involved in sea-level rise, urban flooding, water quality monitoring, and harmful algae bloom detection.

For more information on this important project, the full abstract can be found at https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2331908.