By Marjorie Kaplan, Joyce Ong, and Oliver Stringham
To direct Rutgers climate and energy scholarship towards smart systems that harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) tools, RCEI hosted 70 Rutgers faculty, staff and graduate students in April 2025 in a Convergence Cafe to mobilize interdisciplinary teams for potential collaborations around this theme.
Two plenary talks set the stage with Professor Kristin Dana (Electrical and Computer Engineering) explaining the robotics and vision research she is employing with colleagues at the Rutgers Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research. The team has been using drones and ground robots as a model for precision agriculture by following visual features of cranberries, helping to understand the conditions that influence their optimal ripening time over a growing season that will not only allow for comparisons among different varieties but could also be applied for other crops. Distinguished Professor and RCEI affiliate Oscar Schofield (Marine and Coastal Sciences) provided context for the revolution underway in environmental sensing, where technologies now provide ever more diverse and complex data. Dr. Schofield noted how AI can help us unravel these vast data streams much quicker and smarter, helping society to make good decisions, stressing the timeliness and importance of this moment given the Earth system is undergoing dramatic change.
Lightning talks from Rutgers researchers described work to improve AI and ML techniques for its application to a broad range of climate and energy issues, including: better understanding of meltwater loss of the Greenland ice sheet to the ocean for predicting sea level rise; improving accuracy in predicting flood risk and how we explain that to the public and decision makers; increasing the accuracy of energy and environmental forecasts; using non-intrusive mapping of building energy systems to improve energy planning and to address progress in the energy transition; and understanding the response of biodiversity to climate change.
Networking sessions identified a series of grand challenges around climate change, clean energy and AI. These sessions foster collaborations in the RCEI Convergence Café model of providing an informal space to develop partnerships within Rutgers and across allied institutions. RCEI also couples these cafes to its Groundworks Grants Program as a catalyst for developing competitive external funding proposals.
