The Chaotic Confluence: Where the "defining challenge of our era" meets "the new electricity" of our times
Join the School of Architecture, the Data, AI, and Computing Initiative, and the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative for a lecture by Auroop R. Ganguly. Globally recognized researchers and United Nations Secretaries-General have described Artificial Intelligence as "the new electricity" and climate change as the "defining challenge of our era," respectively. This presentation describes adaptation sciences and technologies, a convergent theme at the interfaces of traditional disciplines, aspiring to develop scientific and societal solutions for global change. Specifically, we examine the promises and pitfalls of data-driven sciences, particularly AI and machine learning, in understanding and managing climate-induced weather and hydrological extremes and their impacts across interconnected sectors ranging from flood emergency management and urban resilience to ecology, transportation, and the food-energy-water nexus. The discussion covers integrating process understanding with AI and data science, focusing on the predictive understanding of extreme values and rare events, along with associated cascading failures, supported by case studies.
Attend in-person or online via zoom.
About Auroop
Auroop R. Ganguly is a Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, where he directs AI for Climate and Sustainability, the Sustainability and Data Sciences Laboratory, (previously co-directed) the Global Resilience Institute, and currently serves as a Chief Scientist at US DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. His research has been published and highlighted in Nature, Science, and PNAS, cited in a US congressional testimony and in the New York Times, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, has served on panels and workshops for the United Nations, co-founded five startups (including one acquired by the Fortune 500 company that owns the New York Stock Exchange), and holds a PhD from MIT along with nearly 28 years of full-time professional experience spanning the private sector, a national laboratory, and academia.
Originally published at architecture.nd.edu.