The Texas A&M Institute of Data Science (TAMIDS) and the Texas A&M University School of Architecture are collaborating with Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University in a project to use Artificial Intelligence to make Earth Science information discoverable by a wide audience. The research is supported through a $1.5 million grant from NASA’s initiative on Data Science Equity, Access and Priority in Research and Education.
Led by TAMIDS director Dr. Nick Duffield, the interdisciplinary team at Texas A&M includes Dr. Xinyue Ye, director of the TAMIDS Urban Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Center for Geospatial Sciences, Applications and Technology (GeoSAT). The project will broaden the accessibility of NASA’s Earth Information System (EIS) by developing a natural language processing (NLP) engine to translate questions from non-scientists into actionable database queries, The project will develop educational activities to increase the numbers of Texas A&M students conducting research and pursuing careers in Data Science and engineering and increase the flow of talent into NASA’s programs. The Texas A&M team visited the Goddard Space Flight Center in May to kick off the project. TAMIDS will host a week long Data Science bootcamp in July open to students, faculty and researchers from collaborating universities and the broader Texas academic community