Convergent Multi-Sector Collaborators and Partners in AI2ES
AI2ES has partners in academia, private industry, federally funded research labs, and government. Each collaborator and partner and their role is detailed below.
Academic Partners
The University of Oklahoma
Lead Institution
The University of Oklahoma serves as the lead institution for the NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography. OU researchers will work on developing novel trustworthy AI methods including a focus on developing physics-based explainable AI, predicting uncertainty, and on improving robustness in the face of adversarial data. AI researchers will work synergistically with meteorology researchers and will test the AI methods on severe weather, including tornadoes, wind, and hail.
Texas A&M UNIVERSITY – CORPUS CHRISTI
Academic Partner
As a partner of the institute, the Conrad Blucher Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi will lead research in Coastal AI and partner with Del Mar College to develop a new innovative Certificate in Artificial Intelligence. AI models will include developing coastal fog and inundation predictions to support commerce and emergency management as well as predictive models to help with the conservation of endangered sea turtles. TAMU-CC will work with institute partners to use explainable AI (XAI) to better understand coastal processes and with local agencies and institute partners to better understand the communication of AI predictions to end users.
Colorado State University
Academic Partner
Colorado State University serves as a partner institution for the institute. As such CSU is engaged in the following three activities:
- Explore and expand methods of trustworthy AI for weather and climate applications
- Apply these methods to tropical cyclones and
- Apply these methods to subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) prediction of extreme weather events.
North Carolina State University
Academic Partner
NC State University serves as a partner institution for the institute. NCSU will lead the efforts in developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) innovations and their applications in coastal ocean sciences. The team will combine oceanography with AI and ML to develop better forecasts of ocean currents and eddies, coastal flooding, and water quality hazards such as harmful algal blooms.
University at Albany
Academic Partner
As a partner for the institute, the University at Albany will lead research and development for the winter weather use case. UAlbany research will exploit innovative AI-based technologies to better monitor and predict impactful winter weather. Model development will be accompanied by the development of custom-tailored tools that can be utilized for real-time decision-making and emergency management. Through cooperation with NY-based transportation sectors, emphasis will be given to road safety in particular.
Del Mar College
Academic Partner
Del Mar College is a comprehensive two-year community college located in Corpus Christi Texas. It has served the Coastal Bend region of South Texas since 1935. The Computer Science, Engineering and Advanced Technology department (CSEAT) will serve as the project liaison between the AI Institute and two-year technical and community colleges nationwide. We are responsible for developing the new innovative Certificate in Artificial Intelligence to be offered by the AI Institute beginning in fall of 2021. This new five-course certificate will be the first in the US for two-year colleges and prepares GIS technicians for applying the power of Artificial Intelligence to geospatial applications, such as coastal wetlands management, hurricane emergency response and other coastal applications. We will partner with Texas A&M University—Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) campus to develop a pipeline of GIS and remote sensing students from high school through Del Mar College and on to the baccalaureate program at TAMUCC. This innovative 2+2+2 (diploma+AAS+BS) program will serve as a model for other universities and colleges as the field of Artificial Intelligence grows nationwide between 2020 and 2030.
University of Washington
Academic Partner
The University of Washington serves as co-lead of Risk Communication research with NCAR in the NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography. Risk Communication research is carried out in close collaboration with teams working on foundational AI research and use-inspired severe weather research, and integrated into the curriculum for the Certificate in Artificial Intelligence.
Central Michigan University
Academic Partner
As a partner for the institute, Central Michigan University focuses on the use of AI/ML to characterize atmospheric processes related to the predictability and identification of severe weather such as hail, tornadoes and other extremes. Intercomparison with statistical techniques will be used to assess the relative benefit and knowledge discovery provided through AI/ML methods.
Private Industry Founding Partners
Private Industry Founding Partner
The Weather Company
Private Industry Founding Partner
Disaster Tech
Private Industry Founding Partner
Disaster Tech, a veteran-owned public benefit company, offers data science and decision science technologies for situational awareness, operational coordination, and risk management before, during, and after disasters. Disaster Tech’s goal is to save lives, protect the environment, and build resilient communities by providing the most sophisticated, advanced analytics and distributed high-performance computing platform on the planet. To learn more about our capabilities and career opportunities, visit https://www.disastertech.com/
NVIDIA
Private Industry Founding Partner
NVIDIA’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI ― the next era of computing ― with the GPU acting as the brain of computers, robots and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.
Private Industry Partners
Radiant Earth Foundation
Private Industry Partner
Radiant Earth Foundation is a neutral nonprofit organization with the mission to empower organizations and individuals with open machine learning (ML) and Earth observation (EO) data, standards and tools to address the world’s most critical challenges. Radiant Earth’s vision is a strengthened global development community that benefits from high-quality and trusted ML and EO resources for positive global impact. We carry out our work through three pillars including (1) Radiant MLHub, the worlds first cloud-based open library dedicated to EO training data, (2) a Community of Practice, working to develop standards and expand interoperability of tools and datasets for data scientists, (3) and Outreach to raise awareness and build capacity amongst global practitioners on progress and innovation in the marketplace. To learn more about Radiant Earth’s efforts and activities visit www.radiant.earth
Vaisala
Private Industry Partner
Vaisala is a global leader in weather, environmental, and industrial measurement – with quality, sustainability, and science-based innovations at its core. Building on 85 years of experience, Vaisala provides a comprehensive range of innovative observation and measurement products and services. Vaisala’s accurate and reliable data supports customers’ and societies’ decision-making, safety, quality, and efficiency. We help our customers to prepare for increasing extreme weather events, ensure the functionality of critical transportation infrastructure, enhance the production of growing renewable energy, optimize weather-dependent commercial operations, and make well-informed decisions. Headquartered in Finland, Vaisala employs over 1,900 professionals worldwide.
SRI Future Concepts Division
Private Industry Partner
SRI International’s Future Concepts Division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC) is a renowned industrial research lab practicing open innovation with a strong mission to publish and disseminate research results and to build research communities to address major scientific challenges. Creativity and science are core to the division’s mission to reduce the time and risk attached to innovation. We draw on our revered history and our energy for the future to create technologies that improve our world and solve complex challenges. As a part of the broader scientific research ecosystem at SRI, the Future Concepts Division is well positioned to support the transformation of science into both productization and commercialization.
TruWeather Solutions
Private Industry Partner
TruWeather Solutions is a leading innovator in micro-weather sensing, modeling and decision insights for transportation and logistics systems. Founded on over 40 years’ experience across the aviation, logistics, and weather industries, TruWeather was founded in 2015 with the mission of accelerating the transition of weather science and technology into commercial systems. TruWeather Solutions offers API-based micro-weather services and a weather sensor plug and play capability designed to detect micro-weather hazards for the emerging drone and e-VTOL industries. TruWeather thrives in autonomous systems, novel weather sensors, data fusion and decision insights where the weather margins are tight and attention to weather detail is paramount for safe, effective and efficient operations.
LumenUs Scientific
Private Industry Partner
LumenUs Scientific Solutions, LLC (LSS) is a technology startup focused on developing and applying Earth Observations (EO) to address big environmental challenges with rigorous, scientifically validated approaches. As scientists, we value transparency and accountability above all else when selecting methods to tackle problems. We follow the data-driven decision-making paradigm: leadership and management strategies that explicitly identify key assumptions and structure decisions around available quantitative information. Lastly, LSS adopts the philosophy of a public benefit corporation, which means that we put people and the planet before profits. Ethics, inclusion, and integrity are the hallmarks of our approach to developing new business and delivering solutions.
MyRadar
Private Industry Partner
MyRadar is a popular weather radar and “earth environment app” with over 50 million worldwide downloads. Available on iOS, Android, Windows, Amazon Alexa and Xbox, MyRadar provides up-to-the-minute weather and weather alerts, including hyper-local, advance warning alerts when rain or snow is imminent, proactively warning you before the precipitation starts! MyRadar also provides stunning surface wind animations, as well as earthquake events, wildfire reports, and a great deal more.
Federally Funded Research Labs and Federal Partners
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Federally funded partner
The National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, is NSF’s largest Federally-Funded Research and Development Center. NCAR provides the atmospheric and related Earth system science community with state-of-the-art resources, including supercomputers, research aircraft, sophisticated computer models, and extensive data sets. As part of this institute, NCAR researchers will develop trustworthy, physically based, and robust explainable AI methods, complete Risk Communication research with key decision makers across the different use cases, and support education and workforce development through trainings, workshops, mentoring, and internships.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Federal Partner
NOAA is an agency that enriches life through science. Our reach goes from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean floor as we work to keep the public informed of the changing environment around them. From daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce, NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product. NOAA’s dedicated scientists use cutting-edge research and high-tech instrumentation to provide citizens, planners, emergency managers and other decision makers with reliable information they need when they need it.
NOAA will collaborate on the development of physically based, trustworthy AI methods to enhance exploitation of observations, prediction and understanding of a multitude environmental phenomena. We will also make use of NOAA’s testbeds to test the AI methods in conjunction with risk communication researchers and end users.
Evaluator
Horizon Research Inc.
Program Evaluator
Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI), located in Chapel Hill, NC, specializes in research, evaluation, and technical assistance related to STEM education. HRI serves as the external evaluator for AI2ES. In this role, HRI will provide formative feedback throughout the project and track progress toward project goals.