NASA provides $1M for AI-Astronomy led by U of I grad student
CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — NASA has awarded $1 million in funding to a research project lead by the Department of Astronomy at the University of Illinois.
The DeepDISC-Euclid interdisciplinary research project was significantly driven by graduate student Grant Merz, whose leadership and key contributions have been instrumental in developing the foundational learning framework that is DeepDISC.
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Under the guidance of Principal Investigator Professor Xin Liu, DeepDISC-Euclid addresses one of the most critical challenges of the European Space Agency Euclid mission: The precise detection and classification of blended astronomical objects in deep, multi-band, high-resolution imaging.
'Merz's groundbreaking work on DeepDISC, leveraging advanced AI techniques such as Transformer-based models and Detectron2, is expected to deliver unprecedented accuracy in object detection, segmentation, and physical inference for precision cosmology,' the U of I said on its website.
The DeepDISC-Euclid project integrates cutting-edge computer vision techniques with extensive astronomical survey datasets, enhancing the scientific potential of the Euclid mission. Co-Investigators Volodymyr Kindratenko, Yue Shen and Yuxiong Wang, all professors at U of I, provide expertise in computational infrastructure, astrophysical analysis and machine learning.
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This project is expected to produce open-source, well-documented software tools to be incorporated into the Euclid NASA Science Center's analysis suite, ensuring wide accessibility and significant scientific impact.
On top of that, DeepDISC-Euclid prioritizes the mentorship and professional development of early-career researchers. The structured internships and hands-on training in computational astrophysics and AI-driven research will give postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduates with skills aligned with NASA's strategic objectives and Illinois Astronomy's educational excellence.
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