The University of Kentucky is leading a five-year, $20 million Research Infrastructure Improvement award from the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NSF EPSCoR) with $4 million in additional funding provided by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

The project is titled “Climate Resilience through Multidisciplinary Big Data Learning, Prediction & Building Response Systems (CLIMBS).” 

“This isn’t simply a five-year project, it is an investment that will live on across Kentucky through improved research infrastructure, new faculty hiring, student support and workforce development,” said Rodney Andrews, Ph.D., senior associate vice president for research at UK and director of UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER).

This project is advancing Kentucky’s climate resiliency by addressing fundamental knowledge gaps using big data, artificial intelligence and risk assessment tools to predict and respond to hazards like floods and landslides, and target infrastructure improvements in water, power, traffic and communications. 

UK leads an eight-institution collaboration with University of Louisville, Western Kentucky University, Northern Kentucky University, Morehead State University, Eastern Kentucky University, Murray State University and Thomas More University.

At UK this project includes researchers from CAER, Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS), Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC), Earth and Environmental Sciences, Anthropology and Computer Science.

Seed funding and programming from K-12 to Ph.D. levels reflect the impact of NSF funding across Kentucky, strengthening workforce development and increasing the number of students who pursue and obtain STEM degrees.

You can keep up with all the CLIMBS projects online here.

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