Panel discussion on AI and climate change

Hossein Bonakdari, PEng, is a faculty member at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering. He is an accomplished researcher and academic with over 15 years of experience in R&D projects. His areas of expertise include artificial intelligence, climate change and risk assessment, environmental studies, and the design of climate change-resilient water infrastructures. His current research focuses on how flood susceptibility varies over space and time, real-time infrastructure monitoring, environmental hydraulics, and hydrological modeling for climate change impact. He has authored three books and published more than 285 papers. In recognition of his remarkable research achievements, he has been consistently ranked among the world’s top 2% of scientists since 2019. 

Ousmane Seidou, PEng, has championed research into hydrology and climate change for creating a sustainable environment, which falls within the Faculty of Engineering’s strategic areas of research. He has a long history of working on water-related sustainable development issues,  water management and adaptation to climate change in Canada and the Global South in collaboration with Canadian and international organizations, including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes, Wetland International, the United Nations University and the World Bank. 

Hamidreza Shirkhani, PEng, has research interests that span a broad range of topics in water resource engineering as well as infrastructure engineering, particularly in the environmental design of civil engineering infrastructure, climate change impacts and implications for water resource engineering and civil engineering infrastructure. Hamidreza Shirkhani’s research interests also include numerical modelling, and he has developed several numerical models for shallow water equations and river flow modelling.  Hamidreza Shirkhani has recently started working on Arctic-related projects, including wastewater treatment infrastructure.  

Assaad Mrad was awarded a PhD in environmental science from Duke University in December 2020. He has directly contributed to developing three flood inundation mapping products at Stantec Inc. He is the technical lead for Flood Predictor, Stantec’s flagship machine learning product, which is being used by governments in Kentucky and Tennessee, along with private entities. He is the lead technical expert on a US federal contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He is skilled in using Azure Cloud and Databricks platforms, database design and maintenance (e.g., PostgreSQL), machine learning operations at scale, and application development. 

Ehsan Roshani, PEng, has worked in the water industry as a consultant and researcher for about 22 years. He has mostly focused on infrastructure rehabilitation planning and on assessing various threats to water infrastructure, ranging from climate change to physical and cyber issues. Ehsan Roshani has developed many patented AI and optimization frameworks and contributed to the development of several water industry guidelines and standards. 

Silvio Gumiere, PEng, who has extensive experience spanning over a decade, contributes significantly to the work of the research team at Laval University’s Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences. Specializing in hydrology, data science, and climate change, Silvio Gumiere possesses a profound understanding and expertise in these areas, which are critical to Quebec’s agricultural industry. These contributions not only advance our understanding of these complex systems, but also lay the foundation for groundbreaking initiatives. Silvio Gumiere’s dedication and insight are instrumental in driving forward projects that focus on mitigating environmental challenges, particularly those exacerbated by climate change. 

Sayed Bateni is a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Water Resources Research Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. His proficiencies span diverse realms, including numerical modeling, climate change mitigation strategies, irrigation scheduling, crop yield assessment, and the assessment of climate change impacts on natural hazards, making Professor Bateni an instrumental contributor to the advancement of research in these vital areas. Throughout the past decade, Professor Sayed Bateni has demonstrated unwavering commitment to promoting inclusivity and fostering innovation through collaborative initiatives. 

Professor Mostafa Hajiaghaei-Keshteli is an associate professor (research) in the Department of Industrial Engineering, School of Engineering and Science, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Puebla Campus, Mexico. In addition to his teaching duties, he is the research director of the Center of Sustainable Smart Logistics and an integral member of the Smart Logistics Research Group at his university. His research focuses on mathematical optimization with machine learning, and he combines machine learning with algorithms in his studies. He conducts interdisciplinary research, with a focus on algorithms and mathematical optimization. According to Stanford University, he is among the top 2% of scientists worldwide.