SE Valley Times

A significant initiative is underway in Arizona to enhance the state's emergency response capabilities. The Arizona Board of Regents has allocated a $1.7 million research grant to the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. This funding aims to develop artificial intelligence-powered software that will aid emergency responders in predicting and managing disaster scenarios.

The project is spearheaded by Maj. Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck, director of the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, with Paulo Shakarian from Arizona State University overseeing the university's involvement. Shakarian, an expert in neurosymbolic AI, explained that the project would utilize logic programming and machine learning to process extensive data sets for calculating future event probabilities.

“Second- and third-order effects, or the mid- and long-term consequences of disasters, are very difficult to account for when you do emergency management planning,” Shakarian says. “One of the important ideas here is that the algorithms need to anticipate these effects so that state planners can pre-position assets to get ahead of problems that can arise.”

The team working on this project includes several experts from ASU such as WenWen Li, Ted Senator, YooJung Choi, Hua Wei, and Ross Maciejewski. Each brings specialized knowledge ranging from geographic information science to large-scale AI systems development.

“We’re honored to be a part of this partnership,” Maciejewski says. “This team exemplifies our dedication to advancing transformative research in ways that benefit our communities and our state.”

Li emphasizes the importance of geographical insights for effective emergency management: “Besides understanding atmospheric conditions like extreme weather and all related geophysical information, emergency managers also need to know where vulnerable communities are located to ensure health concerns are addressed.”

Ted Senator plays a crucial role as a liaison between DEMA and ASU's team ensuring successful collaboration: “DEMA needs advanced capabilities to more accurately understand what’s going on in any sort of emergency, and then come up with appropriate mitigations and responses,” he says.

Shakarian highlights how this work will impact local communities: “The key thing here is that this work is going to directly impact the state,” he says. “This grant is about giving the public access to innovative outcomes produced by Arizona-based universities.”