The Graduate College is pleased to present One Good Pattern Reveals Another: Unraveling the Complexity of Natural Systems using AI, a lecture by University Scholar Donna M. Rizzo, Ph.D., on Friday, September 10th at 4:30 pm in Waterman Memorial Lounge.

The challenges associated with the Big Data revolution have less to do with the amount of data being generated, and more to do with how these data are being used. For me, the ability to see patterns and find order in the chaotic systems that make up our daily lives is fundamental to: i) our existence as intelligent human beings, and ii) our connection to this beautiful, blue planet. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a tool that can help humans visualize and integrate information, identify patterns, and more importantly – rethink how we use the resulting insights to improve decision making. This talk focuses on the application of AI in the context of environmental decision-making, including humanity’s impact on groundwater and the reconciliation of competing interests (e.g., among polluters, landowners, and regulators), the outbreak of Cyanobacteria blooms, disease transmission, and the science of healthcare communication.

Dr. Rizzo is a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and in 2013 was appointed as the Dorothean Chair in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. Her research focuses on the development and application of new machine-learning tools to improve the understanding of human-induced changes on natural systems and the way we experimentally design, monitor, and make decisions about these systems. She has over 25 years of experience with artificial intelligence, geostatistics, and optimization technologies and 30 years of experience in water resources and the visualization of really large data sets. Since the completion of her doctoral degree at the University of Vermont, her post-Ph.D. path has not been traditional for a tenure-track faculty. In 1994, she co-founded a small Vermont business to help speed the diffusion of research and new technologies into environmental practice. She has worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during the 1998 and 2011 Vermont floods. Dr. Rizzo sets an exemplary standard for successfully working across disciplines. Since arriving at UVM in 2002, she and her students have worked collaboratively with colleagues across five different UVM colleges, using a variety of machine-learning tools to tackle multi-scale environmental problems, including: the evaluation of human impacts to surface waters and groundwater; lake cyanobacteria bloom research; disease risk transmission; and most recently, serious illness conversations to help understand and incentivize high-quality communication. She loves working with students on applied research; research grants to date include the recruitment and retention of culturally diverse students. Dr. Rizzo has supported scholarships and research opportunities for more than 200+ UVM undergraduates over the past 15 years and is an active and sought-after teacher, advisor, and mentor. To date, she has advised over 47 graduate students and postdocs and received the George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award in 2014.