Project Grant 2447649

This Project Grant award of $454,087 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), supports an 8-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site at Clemson University. The program will train 12 undergraduate students annually to integrate machine learning and causal inference principles into civil and environmental engineering research. Key technical objectives include: (1) developing novel machine learning methodologies for infrastructure optimization, (2) creating causal inference frameworks to understand complex relationships between infrastructure performance and environmental factors, (3) building open-source machine learning tools and datasets for civil and environmental engineering applications, and (4) establishing ethical guidelines for machine learning deployment. The project, running from January 1, 2026, to December 31, 2028, aims to advance national prosperity and welfare through improved infrastructure resilience and efficiency by bridging the gap between traditional engineering education and cutting-edge computational methods.