NSF NRT: Artificial Intelligence for Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability

Mission

Our dual mission is to prepare URM PhD students to tackle climate grand challenges and to increase the diversity in the STEM workforce.

Our vision is to train diverse URM students in environmental science, water quality management, ML/AI, one water and health research and empower them to pursue future careers in the STEM fields.

Our goals are to provide mentored research thesis, a series of professional development workshops, summer workshop, domestic/foreign internship, and opportunities for future career pathways in the environmental sector. Our proposed NRT ACCESS program will prepare future scientists and leaders who are trained in interdisciplinary research and equipped with science communication skills to succeed in the STEM fields.

Our NRT ACCESS trainees will be selected from existing Morgan State doctoral programs in bioenvironmental science, mathematics education, engineering, and computer science (new program launching in 2023).

About

NRT Artificial Intelligence for Changing Climate and Environmental SuStainability (ACCESS) is an interdisciplinary program directed by PI, Dr. Samendra Sherchan. The faculty and mentors are all excellent researchers from diverse backgrounds and have expertise in water quality, geoscience, environmental data science, climate change, machine learning, AI.

Climate change represents one of the most significant threats to public health in the 21^st century. Machine-learning (ML) based Artificial-Intelligence (AI) approaches have shown great promise in reducing and responding to changing climate. However, climate change research is fractionated in diverse disciplines (computer science, data science, AI, geosciences, environmental science, and engineering). This delays the progress towards a better understanding of the impacts of climate change and ML/AI solutions. To address this situation, the proposed NRT AI: ACCESS interdisciplinary program (Figure 1) will train next generation of scientists and leaders with a strong multidisciplinary background and understanding of how AI/ML can provide solutions for changing climate, environmental pollution, and water quality management.