21 FOR ’21
A YEAR-END SERIES OF ARTICLES HIGHLIGHTING UTSA’S ADVANCE TO A BOLD FUTURE
DECEMBER 25, 2020 — Editor’s note: The grant will support university efforts to advance research, technology development, student training and the diversity of students in the STEM fields. [Originally published October 20, 2020.]
UTSA has received a four-year, $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to advance research, technology development, student training and the diversity of students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
The Bioenergy and Water for Agriculture Research and Education (BE AWARE 2) Network is a consortium led by Krystel Castillo, director of the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute, GreenStar Endowed Associate Professor in Energy and VP in Energy Efficiency for the Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute. It involves several partners including The University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley, The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, San Antonio College, South Texas College and multiple U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies.
“[This research] helps us to shape the future economic prosperity, health, and food security of our region for generations to come.”
Nowadays, concerns are growing over the ability of the modern smart agriculture systems to simultaneously achieve security and environmental sustainability. The increased penetration of Internet of Things based smart security and monitoring devices allows farmers to collect data with a high granularity and in enormous quantities; however, security issues are a latent concern. Additionally, the use of machine learning as well as artificial intelligence techniques is revolutionizing the decision-making support systems in smart agriculture. Yet, the dominant tendency is to conceptualize diverse smart agriculture systems (for example, biofuels, food, water, etc.) as separate, disconnected issues, which is a key barrier to educational transformation.
BE AWARE 2 will continue and expand efforts to provide research opportunities and transdisciplinary training in IoT security, data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence for the optimization and design of integrated bioenergy and water systems.
“The BE AWARE 2 team will work towards addressing the shortage of trained workforce in data analytics to optimize smart agriculture with a holistic systems perspective,” said Castillo.
BE AWARE 2 trains a future workforce with a strong baseline understanding of data-driven agriculture systems by engaging students in research projects showing the integrative nature of biofuel production and water remediation. BE AWARE 2 aims to identify frontiers in agriculture and devise the future of data-driven agriculture systems.
“The holistic approach and training in data-driven integrated systems will allow fellows to address challenges from a science, experimental, analytical and computational integrated approach,” said Castillo.
The long-term impact, Castillo added, will be to create a competitive workforce, able to design and manage smart agriculture systems to increase the economic competitiveness of the United States.
“This type of research, which directly impacts our communities while engaging a broad network of academic and government partners, is a perfect example of how UTSA and the College of Engineering seeks to serve our society,” said, JoAnn Browning, dean of the UTSA College of Engineering. “The work that Dr. Castillo and her colleagues will complete helps us to shape the future economic prosperity, health, and food security of our region for generations to come.”
