Meiyi Ma, assistant professor of computer science at Vanderbilt, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award to develop explainable technology for Societal-Scale Integrated Cyber-Physical Systems.
Such systems have transformed industries like manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and smart cities. However, stakeholders often hesitate to trust these systems due to a lack of explainability, which raises concerns about reliability, especially in safety-critical areas.
Through use of the $600,000 grant, Ma’s research aims to develop explainable and trustworthy complex CPS capable of justifying their decisions and incorporating field operators’ queries and domain knowledge to adapt to evolving environments.
“It is an incredible honor to receive the NSF CAREER Award,” said Ma, who got the award on her first try. Applicants are only allowed to submit three times.
“As cyber-physical systems become more deeply integrated into critical aspects of our daily lives—from emergency response and transportation to smart cities and connected healthcare—the need for transparency and trust is more urgent than ever.”
She said another key innovation is to bring rigorousness and explainability to CPS classes in computer science and create a new course, CPS in the field, for multidisciplinary students, and the associated innovative teaching and outreach activities.
Last year, Ma also received a Google Academic Research Award, and she’s currently leading research funded by a $300,000 NSF grant to develop what’s considered the world’s first Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) training system for 911 call takers and dispatchers.
The work is a collaboration between Ma’s lab and the Nashville Department of Emergency Communications (DEC).
Contact: Lucas Johnson, lucas.l.johnson@vanderbilt.edu