TrAC - Translational AI Center

Join us next Wednesday, September 18 at 11 am CT, for the first in our Fall 2024 TrAC Seminar Series! Dr. Ping Guo, Associate Professor at Northwestern University, will present "Deep learning enabled computer vision metrology: from strain estimation to form measurement." Share this post, spread the word, and we will see you there! 🔗 Visit our website for details and access to the meetings: https://lnkd.in/g3HnsscE

No one is surprised AI is trending. We are excited to be contributing to the trend.

It is bittersweet to report that our inaugural Summer TrAC - Translational AI Center Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) has officially came to an end. We are honored to commemorate our first cohort of emerging young scholars - a group from several different countries and states who dedicated 9 weeks of their summer to professional development, networking, and AI research. TrAC - Translational AI Center was especially well-represented by our summer interns at the campus-wide ISU Undergraduate Research Symposium. It was exciting to see some family members in attendance! We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the staff, faculty, graduate students, and industry partners who made this program possible. When we welcomed Jason Wiegand to serve as Education and Outreach Coordinator, developing and leading an REU became his primary objective. When asked about the experience of serving as TrAC REU Program Coordinator, he shared the following: “It was a privilege to bring such a diverse community of students together to live and learn in Ames, Iowa. We learned so much from one another. They gave me energy. While I was proud of their work, I was most impressed with how well they took care of one another.” Congratulations once again to our TrAC REU alumni! You are now each program ambassadors. Your AI journey doesn’t end here. This is just the beginning. 👏 Daniella Benitez, Rim Nassiri, Micah Wallace, Pallavi Baliyara, Ezra Odole, Chase Franklin, Nathan Van Utrecht, Nguyen Tat Bach, Tirtho Roy, Elijah Rodriguez, Yash Puri #AI #REU #SummerProgram #Innovation #TranslationalAICenter #IowaStateUniversity #Research #FutureLeaders #AIExcellence

This past Thursday, I had the privilege of presenting my research, "Visualization of 3D Point Cloud Data in Virtual Reality (VR) using Standalone Head Mounted Displays (HMDs)", at the Iowa State University Summer Research Symposium. In this project, I developed a method to render point cloud data on the Meta Quest 3 as a standalone APK, aiming to support AI research with 3D datasets. This work not only showcases the potential of VR in data visualization but also contributes to advancing AI research by providing immersive and interactive experiences. This incredible journey was made possible by the support of the TrAC - Translational AI Center at Iowa State University through their REU program. My time at Iowa State has been transformative, filled with impactful experiences and interdisciplinary connections that have broadened my perspective on academic research. I'm grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the field and am excited about the possibilities this research opens up for the future. To view a demonstration please visit: https://lnkd.in/edibmdFY (YouTube) #Research #VirtualReality #AI #PointCloudData #MetaQuest #IowaStateUniversity #REU #UnrealEngine #Graphics

The excitement continued on our second day of industry tours, where our TrAC - Translational AI Center REU interns were graciously hosted by our partners at Corteva Agriscience in Johnston, IA! We can’t say enough about how generous their team was with their time and energy. The visit underscored the critical role of AI in enhancing agricultural advancements and sustainability. Our students were especially inspired by Corteva Agriscience leadership and the diverse panelists who candidly shared their invaluable perspective regarding their own journey, the transition from college to career, the value of soft skills, and Corteva Agriscience culture. The incredible meal was an added bonus that did not go unappreciated by our students and staff! We need to extend a huge THANK YOU to: Matthew Smalley for providing a warm welcome, an informative presentation, and organizing the panel and visit, Justin Gerke for moderating the panel, Taylor Ferebee, PhD Caner Ferhatoglu, Gurmeet Kaur, Chunquan (Tom) Tang, and Naveen Sampath for serving as panelists, Peter Howe and Charlotte Harris for leading our students on genotyping and genomics lab tours, and Meg Ryan and Bailey Hill for their part in orchestrating our visit! Bravo to the whole team. Please add Jason Wiegand, Nguyen Tat Bach, Pallavi Baliyara, Daniella Benitez, Chase Franklin, Rim Nassiri, Ezra Odole, Yash Puri, Elijah Rodriguez, Nathan Van Utrecht and Micah Wallace to your list of fans! Our industry tours have been an incredibly enriching experience for our REU students, equipping them with practical knowledge and industry insights that will undoubtedly influence their future research and career paths. Joining forces with partners like Corteva Agriscience is what helps set us apart. We look forward to learning where our future leads! #AI #Agriculture #REU #Research #JohnDeere #Corteva #Innovation #Sustainability #TranslationalAICenter #IowaStateUniversity #TechVisit #UndergraduateResearch #FutureLeaders #TrAC

AIIRA had the wonderful opportunity to contribute to the AI for Ag Summit discussion. Yesterday, Chinmay Hegde Hedge (New York University) and Pat Schnable (Iowa State University) leant their expertise to AI for Crop Improvement, and George Kantor (Carnegie Mellon University, The Robotics Institute) provided his insights into AI for Agricultural Robotics. Today, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian (Iowa State University) lead the panel discussion on Policy Concerns in Agriculture. We are excited to continue working with our sister AI for Ag Institutes on the potential impact of these collaborations. AgAID Institute AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS) AI-CLIMATE Institute AIFARMS (Center for Digital Agriculture) AI Institutes Virtual Organization (AIVO)

Can the SOTA multimodal LLMs identify, classify and quantify various plant stresses (diseases, insect-pests, weeds) out of the box (zero shot) or with only a few examples (few shot in-context learning)? Find out the answer in our new study, where we present AgEval, a new benchmark comprising 12 diverse plant stress phenotyping tasks, to evaluate these models' capabilities. TL;DR version: While zero-shot performance may not be acceptable, these models start becoming quite useful even with a few (about 6 to 8) examples.  Website: https://lnkd.in/gTMA9p2S Paper: https://lnkd.in/g59nPS-6 Code: https://lnkd.in/gPamTPkW Benchmark: https://lnkd.in/gshZS-p5 Joint work with Arbab Arshad, Talukder Zaki Jubery, Tirtho Roy, Rim Nassiri, Asheesh K Singh, Arti Singh, Chinmay Hegde, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Aditya Balu, Adarsh Krishnamurthy TrAC - Translational AI Center, AIIRA - AI Institute For Resilient Agriculture, COALESCE, Iowa State University, NYU Tandon School of Engineering #ai, #LLM, #agriculture, #machinelearning

Exciting times at the TrAC - Translational AI Center at Iowa State University! Our Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) students embarked on two days of industry tours, gaining insights into cutting-edge technologies and engaging in dialogue with professionals in the field. On Day 1, our partners at John Deere Des Moines Works in Ankeny, IA, were kind enough to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the advanced manufacturing processes and innovative technologies that drive John Deere's success. The tour provided a deeper understanding of how AI and automation are revolutionizing the agricultural industry. Thanks to John Deere Des Moines Works from Jason Wiegand, Ahmad Nazar, Nguyen Tat Bach, Pallavi Baliyara, Daniella Benitez, Chase Franklin, Rim Nassiri, Ezra Odole, Yash Puri, Elijah Rodriguez, Tirtho Roy, Nathan Van Utrecht and Micah Wallace! Following our site visit, the cohort enjoyed lunch at Zombie Burger in the East Village in advance of touring the Iowa State Capitol and the downtown sculpture park. This second half of the day provided our global community of students the opportunity to explore the architectural grandeur and history of our state capitol, as well as Des Moines culture. Stay tuned for Day 2 to learn where our students journey took them next! #AI #Agriculture #REU #Research #JohnDeere #Corteva #Innovation #Sustainability #TranslationalAICenter #IowaStateUniversity #TechVisit #UndergraduateResearch #FutureLeaders #TrAC

Did you know it is possible photograph individual 2 or 4-row corn yield plots from satellites? Did you know you have a chance to win cash prizes* for designing the best way to predict grain yield from satellite pictures of hybrid field trials conducted across Iowa and Nebraska? Check out the "MLCAS Corn Yield Prediction Using Satellite Data" contest on on eval.ai: https://lnkd.in/eKsXyeqk The deadline to form teams is coming up at the end of this week. If you have questions about the contest or the dataset, please reach out to me or Nikee Shrestha. *Also the accolades of AI and plant scientists from around the globe and bragging rights.

We're excited to showcase Elijah Rodriguez, another one of our summer interns at the TrAC - Translational AI Center at Iowa State University! Hailing from Yorkville, Illinois, Elijah is an aerospace engineering student at Iowa State University (ISU) with a passion for cutting-edge technology applications. During his time at ISU, Elijah has been working alongside TrAC Associate Director, and Professor in Mechanical Engineering, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, focusing on the fascinating field of 3D reconstruction of objects from raw data. This research area sits at the intersection of aerospace engineering and advanced computational techniques, promising exciting developments in object modeling and analysis. In addition to research, Elijah has joined our REU community for social activities, learning opportunities, and professional development. Please join us in celebrating his commitment to TrAC and ISU! #AI #trac #aerospaceengineering #mechanicalengineering #reinforcementlearning #ComputerVision #IowaStateUniversity #REU #IowaStateUniversity #computerscience