Cargill Seminar Room
1500 Gortner Ave
St. Paul, MN 55108
The 32nd Kuehnast Lecture took place at 3-4:30 PM on Thursday, October 2, 2025. We welcomed distinguished guest Dr. Elizabeth Barnes, Incoming Dalton Family Chair in Environmental Data Science & Sustainability and Professor of Computing & Data Sciences and of Earth & Environment at Boston University. The lecture was held in the Cargill Seminar Room on the University of MN's St. Paul Campus. Light refreshments served after the lecture in the Cargill Atrium.
Explainable AI for Earth System Prediction: From Black Box to Window into the Future
The coupled, complex nature of the Earth system makes it incredibly challenging to predict. Progress in this area requires integrating diverse approaches, from physics-based climate models to deep learning emulators. In this presentation, Dr. Barnes will discuss her team's progress in developing and applying artificial intelligence (AI) tools to enhance Earth system prediction across time and space. These tools are designed to emulate scientific reasoning, improving intrinsic interpretability and predictive capabilities. Dr. Barnes will demonstrate how integrating domain knowledge with AI methods and thoughtful model development can make these tools more transparent and useful to the scientists using them.
About the lecture series
In 1992, the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate was honored by the establishment of an endowment provided by the family of former Minnesota State Climatologist, Earl Louis, and his wife, Leila (Newbrough) Kuehnast. The endowment is used to further teaching and research programs in climatology and meteorology. The Kuehnast Lecture Series is sponsored by this endowment.