Federal Grant Award Summary

Iowa State University received a $549,689 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation's Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CFDA 47.070) beginning October 1, 2026 and concluding September 30, 2031. The project delivers advanced mathematical, computational, and visualization techniques to help scientists understand and communicate uncertainty in large-scale simulation ensembles—critical for applications in weather forecasting, energy systems, and engineering design. The research is grounded in topological data analysis (TDA) and comprises three coordinated efforts: TopoFeat (developing scalable methods for extracting structural features across simulation ensembles), HyUQ (a hybrid uncertainty quantification framework combining mathematical modeling and machine learning), and VisUQ (an interactive visualization platform). The resulting tools will be released as open-source software for the broader scientific community.

Beyond its research objectives, the project integrates educational components designed to train future data scientists and introduce K-12 students to data literacy, scientific reasoning, and uncertainty concepts. This CAREER award supports early-career researcher development within NSF's Computer and Information Science and Engineering program, which emphasizes investigator-initiated research with significant educational impact. The work addresses a critical gap in scientific computing by enabling scientists to draw more informed and trustworthy conclusions from computationally intensive ensemble simulations.