Federal Project Grant Award Summary

North Carolina State University received a $431,987 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Biological Infrastructure under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) beginning September 1, 2026 and concluding August 31, 2028. The award funds the development of advanced statistical software and analytical tools within the open-source Ecoverse software ecosystem to address challenges in processing artificial intelligence (AI)-derived ecological monitoring data. Specifically, the project will develop three new classes of statistical models that estimate species and community distributions while accounting for false positive and false negative errors inherent in AI classification algorithms used in remote sensing technologies such as camera traps and acoustic recording units.

The deliverables include comprehensive workflows and user-accessible documentation that enable both novice and experienced researchers to effectively leverage AI-generated ecological data for species distribution analysis and abundance assessments. Additionally, the project includes two training workshops and a graduate seminar at North Carolina State University to build capacity among users and develop the next generation of software contributors and maintainers. All software developments will be released as open-source, publicly available tools to advance responsible artificial intelligence adoption across the environmental science and natural resource management community.