We live in an age when mobile phones recognize our faces and our laptops can guess our words in an email faster than we can type them. Self-driving robots zip through bustling cities to deliver fast-food orders to customers.

It’s tough to go a day without encountering artificial intelligence, or AI. What was science fiction only a few years ago has seeped into everyday life.

NC State University’s College of Engineering leaders and faculty are seizing the moment. Last fall, the college launched the Applied AI in Engineering and Computer Science initiative. Applied AI is the use of AI to find practical solutions to problems. The initiative integrates AI across teaching and research throughout the college’s work, from boosting farmers’ harvests to discovering materials at nanoscale.

It aims to elevate research scholarship, transform education and better prepare students for the careers and problem-solving of an increasingly AI-driven future. The initiative’s timing is right. Professionals across engineering disciplines are increasingly using AI to solve problems. North Carolina’s government has committed to expanding engineering and computer science education in the state through its Engineering North Carolina’s Future initiative. At the same time, businesses are increasingly asking their employees to use AI in their work.

“The AI revolution is bringing data to us at a scale that human brains can’t comprehend,” said Jim Pfaendtner, Louis Martin-Vega Dean of Engineering and professor of chemical engineering. “AI tools enable engineers to process that data more quickly and discover relationships hidden within it. Experts expect AI to produce gains like faster bridge design and construction, more efficient airfoils and smarter supply-chain models — an engineering revolution.”

All undergraduate and graduate engineering students will see elements of applied AI in their classrooms and labs. In the research realm, faculty members are already forming teams that use AI to solve engineering’s biggest challenges, guided by the college’s disciplinary strengths.

The initiative is a natural part of fulfilling NC State’s land-grant university mandate to benefit the people and communities of North Carolina — and of carrying out NC State’s motto, Think and Do, Pfaendtner noted.

“We’re at our very best when we’re innovating,” he said. “We’re doing use-inspired research and development, and we’re teaching students to use what they learn to solve big, thorny problems for the world.”

The College of Engineering’s critical mass of AI research intertwines with NC State’s land-grant mission: to innovate and apply knowledge for public good. Real-world projects driven by AI are already touching lives across the state in ways that might surprise you.

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AI For Life

Researchers are using data to protect health, power communities and boost profitability.

The College of Engineering’s critical mass of AI research intertwines with NC State’s land-grant mission: to innovate and apply knowledge for public good. Real-world projects driven by AI are already touching lives across the state in ways that might surprise you.

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AI Meets Agriculture:
Smarter Sorting for Sweetpotatoes

NC State researchers are taking the guesswork out of agriculture with AI — and their target is the humble sweetpotato, North Carolina’s nation-leading crop.

Led by electrical engineer Cranos Williams, Goodnight Distinguished Professor of Agri-cultural Analytics, the team is helping sweetpotato packers make more informed decisions about sorting and selling crops. The goal: maximize value and match the right potatoes to the right markets.

Sweetpotatoes vary in shape, size and skin — differences that influence how much they’re worth. Uniform ones head to grocery stores; irregular ones go to processors or even pet food makers. Each step down the value chain can mean up to a 70% drop in revenue.

Farmers store sweetpotatoes in 2,000-pound bins with no clear view of what’s inside. Once washed, shelf-life plummets from 13 months to just three weeks. That’s where Williams’ team steps in. They’ve developed AI-driven imaging and sensor tools that analyze storage roots by size, shape and surface quality — and link that data to the fields they came from.

Because many smaller packers still sort by hand, AI-driven systems like these can also monitor accuracy and flag inefficiencies, such as quality lapses during shift changes.

To make the wealth of digital information accessible, NC State engineers built web dashboards that help users review data, track trends, align inventory with orders and optimize post-harvest decisions.

“It’s all about data-driven ways they can make normal, day-to-day decisions,” Williams said.

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Building Smarter: How NC State’s Kevin Han Uses AI to Revolutionize Construction

With energy demands rising nationwide, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is investing heavily in next-generation nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, power plant builders are plagued by similar frustrations as the stereotypical American homeowner: construction setbacks.

In the United States and Europe, nuclear power plant construction projects typically lag eight years behind schedule and cost 2.5 times their estimates, according to the International Energy Agency.

Enter NC State’s Kevin Han. The associate professor and Edward I. Weisiger Distinguished Scholar in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering is investigating AI tools to clear construction hurdles. The DOE funds much of his work.

Han’s smart systems flag trouble early or prevent it. At the heart of his research is a powerful idea: using AI to bridge the gap between a building’s digital blueprint and real-time construction progress.

A tool called Building Information Modeling (BIM) is often used to create digital models of planned structures. By employing drones, mobile robots and cameras, Han’s systems collect data on construction in real time.

Han’s systems use machine learning and computer vision to compare reality to digital models, looking for elements that are missing, behind schedule or faulty. Think of them as virtual project supervisors always on the lookout for trouble spots.

“My technologies can help de-risk cost and schedule issues by bringing transparency to construction performance and enabling streamlined design and construction processes,” Han said.

If builders embrace AI-boosted BIM and change traditional construction culture, utilities could reduce their capital expenses — and everyday customers could save on energy bills.

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Water Wise: How AI Could Safeguard Water Quality

Yara Yingling has a message for North Carolinians: AI could help safeguard the state’s water.

As Kobe Steel Distinguished Professor and a materials science expert at NC State, Yingling uses AI to address one of North Carolina’s most pressing environmental challenges — safeguarding groundwater quality.

Groundwater supplies drinking water for roughly 2.4 million North Carolinians who rely on private wells, and it often contains pollutants that pose health risks. Through the National Science Foundation-funded Science and Technologies for Phosphorus Sustainability (STEPS) Center, Yingling partnered with environmental engineers at Arizona State University to study groundwater quality. Their AI-powered approach could save time and money for communities while also protecting the health of people and the planet.

As Yingling explains, government agencies have collected groundwater chemistry data for decades, but many regions lack complete groundwater-quality datasets due to the time and expense required to test for pollutants. 

Yingling’s AI algorithms churned the incomplete data to predict levels of more than 20 compounds in groundwater at any site, based on chemical patterns. AI helped identify contamination “hotspots” and areas believed to be safe but warrant further testing. 

Eventually, Yingling wants to build digital twins of U.S. groundwater and nutrient cycles — a convergence informatics approach that links water quality, materials science, and environmental policy. These AI models could test “what-if” scenarios and explore how changes in land use, fertilizer management or cleanup efforts might affect water quality. 

“The AI tool could tell a farmer, ‘It’s going to rain in a couple of days. Hold off on fertilizing, because the runoff is going to be too high and you’re going to waste all your fertilizer,’” she explained. That vision is becoming reality through a startup Yingling is launching to bring precision agriculture tools to farmers and wastewater engineers.

Fundamentally, Yingling emphasizes that people are the most important component of AI systems. “AI works best when it’s guided by human curiosity,” Yingling said. “Training the next generation to work hand-in-hand with these tools will help solve the challenges that define our time.”

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Teaching for a Data-Driven Future

NC State engineering students will see and learn about AI in every discipline through a new initiative.

Artificial intelligence is becoming a fundamental part of how the next generation of engineers is educated at NC State’s College of Engineering. Through its bold Applied AI in Engineering and Computer Science initiative, the college is weaving data-driven tools into teaching for every discipline and creating a model that prepares students not just to adapt to the future, but also to shape it.

“We’re committed to an expansive view of engineering education that includes data-driven practices,” said Jim Pfaendtner, Louis Martin-Vega Dean of Engineering. “Engineers’ training has been rooted in physics, math and chemistry for centuries, and that will continue. But we are excited about upskilling our students so that they can use data-driven tools to create structures and processes, rooted in the basic laws used to assess whether these processes and structures are safe, profitable and effective.”

The strategy’s goal: Equip students with a mindset that enables them to evaluate engineering problems and apply the right AI technologies to solve them.

In August, first-year students enrolled in E298, Fundamentals of Applied AI for Engineering, a new course that introduces AI tools. It’s the first phase of a two-course sequence that aims to evolve and grow along with AI and students’ interests.

Their education starts by exploring relatable simulations — like how an online retailer fulfills customers’ orders — and how AI fits into solving those engineering problems. No complex coding is involved. David Roberts, associate professor of computer science and one of the architects of the new courses, uses an analogy he credits to Pfaendtner. “If AI is a car, we don’t need every student to be an automotive engineer,” Roberts said. “They don’t need to disassemble the engine and replace the crankshaft, but they do need to know a car has an engine and the role it plays in getting you down the road.”

Under the applied AI initiative, every one of the more than 12,500 NC State engineering and computer science students will leave with the ability to think critically about AI and use it responsibly. Pfaendtner sees more data-driven electives and an AI minor in the future.

“AI is no longer something only computer scientists need to understand,” Roberts said. “It’s a tool every engineer will use. Our job is to ensure students know how to use it responsibly and effectively.”

Ethics is a core component, thanks to collaboration with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Like so many engineering decisions, those informed by AI carry consequences — and legal liability. From environmental impacts to algorithmic bias, students are learning to navigate the risks and benefits of the AI technologies they use. Sometimes, AI is the wrong solution to a problem.

“We want them to know when to use it and when not to use it,” said curriculum expert Sarah Heckman, Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in the Department of Computer Science. “There are times when using an AI machine learning library isn’t necessarily going to get you an answer quite as nicely as using a basic spreadsheet.”

The initiative also invests in faculty development. Professors are encouraged to learn about AI from other faculty experts. The college launched an AI research accelerator this year, and Pfaendtner expects the number of data-driven engineering faculty members to grow.

Encouraging faculty creativity and involvement ensures AI fluency across disciplines. Already, courses across the college are pushing boundaries. Roberts’ class on animal-computer interaction, for example, explores how dogs can interact with computer systems. He and his students talk about how to design buttons that a dog can actuate with its nose, he said, and “AI can be used to determine the dog’s orientation to the button.”

Faculty in different departments are also bringing their students together. In a special project supported by the National Science Foundation, students in data science, applied sciences and basic sciences are collaborating to solve agricultural challenges using AI.

The public mostly knows about AI because of image-generating apps and large language model-based apps like ChatGPT, but they’re a small part of the AI universe. Machine learning and computer vision are often far more relevant to engineering, Heckman said.

“We’re trying to get to the point where, first off, students realize that AI is more than generative AI and large language models. It’s way more than that,” she noted. “Then they can start thinking about the fundamental engineering problems they need to solve, and how AI can support that.”

Ultimately, the college’s vision is about teaching students to keep learning and adapting long after graduation.

“AI is not a siloed discipline. It now touches pretty much every discipline on the planet,” Roberts said. “This is core to our approach, and our students are going to be better served in their careers as a result.”

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Helen Huang: The Woman Pioneering Bionic Innovation

For the more than 2 million Americans living with limb loss, walking can be one of life’s hardest challenges. That’s where Jackson Family Distinguished Professor He (Helen) Huang comes in.

A leading biomedical engineer, Huang is using artificial intelligence to transform robotic prosthetics into seamless extensions of the human body. It’s a calling that combines her intense curiosity with the gratification of seeing her work help people lead better lives.

Today’s robotic limbs already respond to electrical signals from remaining muscles. Huang’s innovation takes that further. She’s testing limbs that walk autonomously, using sensors and AI to coordinate the robotic limbs’ movements and help users avoid falls.

She’s also applying AI to speed up one of prosthetics’ most time-consuming steps: fitting. Typically, clinicians spend hours tweaking each robotic limb to match a patient’s gait. Huang’s technology lets the limb learn and adjust on its own — giving clinicians more time to focus on perfecting the way patients move. She hopes to participate in a clinical trial soon as the next step to getting these AI-optimized robotics to patients.

As an engineer, Huang is always looking to create better technology. But what does she describe as the “fun” part of her job? Her study participants. She is especially thankful to the community of volunteers in North Carolina who eagerly pilot-test every new bit of robotic limb technology. One of the participants has attended the dissertation defense of every doctoral student in Huang’s lab for the last five years.

“We really appreciate them. They see the importance of the work for the future, even if the research might not directly benefit them,” she said, pride rising in her voice.

“Engineers often think they have great solutions, but they may not meet actual user needs. The users give us feedback on what’s important, what works, and what doesn’t.”

Behind these advances is foundational support. Huang credits the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health for taking early risks on ideas that sounded far-fetched at the time. “They’re critical to advancing the work.

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Let’s Talk Data

AI experts come to campus, and students shine in symposia and seminar series.

AI is evolving quickly, and the NC State College of Engineering is growing its own AI ambitions alongside it. Thanks to the shared vision of faculty, the college is becoming a preeminent center for applied AI education and research in engineering and computer science.

Faculty, staff, students, alumni and industry leaders see momentum building through opportunities to hear from leading AI investigators and to share research.

The Dean’s Distinguished Seminar Series on Applied AI Futures attracts top thinkers and trailblazers to explore how AI can be used to solve the world’s toughest engineering problems. These conversations are sparking imaginations and new partnerships.

The creative exchange began with the first Applied AI in Engineering and Computer Science Symposium at the college a year ago. This kickoff event featured nearly 100 poster submissions from faculty and students highlighting data-driven research in DNA storage, robotic limbs, autonomous vehicles, agricultural applications and materials discovery.

Engineers and computer scientists contributed strongly to this year’s University Research Symposium in March. Topics at the Research With AI: Navigating A New Age symposium included using AI to improve textile waste recycling processes and monitoring crop yields with data gathered by drones.

“There’s exciting work happening in every department,” Louis Martin-Vega Dean Jim Pfaendtner said, “So we are coalescing that at the college level around the applied AI initiative.”

The 2025 Applied AI in Engineering and Computer Science Symposium is Oct. 27.

To watch videos of previous applied AI speakers at the college and hear about upcoming seminars, visit engr.ncsu.edu/applied-ai.