Gulf States Center For Environmental Informatics

About Us

Dr. Mahdi Abdelguerfi
Director

Welcome to the Canizaro Livingston Gulf States Center for Environmental Informatics (GulfSCEI, pronounced “Gulf Sea”). We foster interdisciplinary collaboration within the University of New Orleans and between investigators across the Gulf of Mexico, and empower scientists and engineers with modern informatics tools to solve environmental problems of the coastal margin of the US Gulf States. We assist state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and industrial partners to advance their educational, research, and development capabilities in environmental informatics. Questions and inquiries about GulfSCEI should be directed to: gulfsceidirector@uno.edu.

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Upcoming Seminars

• 

  Austin Schmidt
  Fixed-Location Forecasting with Ratio-Coupled Loss Functions

  (Ph.D. Defense)

    Presented By Austin Schmidt

    Fri, November 14, 2025 @ 10:00 AM

    Math 329 & Via Teams

  
  

  Abstract: This dissertation investigates surrogate modeling for fixed-location environmental forecasting using novel data-combination techniques. The work surveys the landscape of observational measurements and numerically generated data, identifying similar research and gaps in current methodologies. The... Read More

GulfSCEI Pre-Christmas Luncheon

GulfSCEI Pre-Christmas Luncheon

A special Pre-Christmas Luncheon celebration will be held in the Math 303 conference room following Austin's defense. Join us for food, conversation, and festivities as we enter the holiday season. Please note that attendance is by invitation only.

  Friday, November 14 @ 12:00

  Math 303 Conference Room

Latest News

• 
  GulfSCEI researcher Rasha Alshawi successfully defends doctoral research, heads for University of San Francisco in August

  Apr. 16, 2025: Today we celebrate a major milestone for one of our GulfSCEI Doctoral Research Assistants, Rasha Alshawi. Read More
• 
  GulfSCEI researcher Johny Lopez awarded prestigious DoD SMART scholarship

  Apr. 3, 2025: GulfSCEI graduate research assistant, Johny Lopez, has been awarded the Department of Defense’s Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART)... Read More
• 
  Graz University of Technology M.S. student Christina Thrainer begins research visit at GulfSCEI

  Mar. 27, 2025: GulfSCEI is pleased to welcome Christina Thrainer, a new international research collaborator from Graz University of Technology, Austria. A master's student... Read More
• 
  Visiting Graz Technical University M.S. student Elias Sandner completes his visit to GulfSCEI

  Jul. 28, 2023: At GulfSCEI, we have the fortune to work with a wide variety of students and scholars of different backgrounds. Through July 2023, Graz Technical University Graduate... Read More

Active Grants

• HYCOM Surrogate Modeling With Ratio-Coupled Loss Functions and Seamless Enroute IFR Chart Generation from Geospatial Data

  Abdelguerfi, M. (PI)

  Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) - Department of the Navy

  Award: $1,107,716 (Pending). Nov. 2025 — Oct. 2030
• Advancing Ocean Forecasting Through Sparse Identification, Physiscs-Informed Neural Networks, and Wave Modeling Integration

  Ferdaus,, M. (PI), Abdelguerfi, M. (Co-PI)

  Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) - Department of the Navy

  Award: $110,236 (Pending). Nov. 2025 — Oct. 2026
• Artificial Intelligence Algorithms to Identify Deficiencies in Flood Control Systems

  Abdelguerfi, M. (PI), Hoque, T. (Co-PI)

  U.S Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)

  Award: $3,750,000 (W912HZ-23-2-004). Jan. 2023 — Jan. 2026
• Geospatial Intelligence and Pattern Discovery

  Abdelguerfi, M. (PI)

  Office of Naval Research (ONR) - Department of the Navy

  Award: $1,813,141 (N00173-19-S-BA01). Sep. 2020 — Aug. 2026

Our Research

The GulfSCEI center fosters interdisciplinary collaboration within UNO and facilitates close collaboration with non-academic institutions, such as state and federal agencies and industrial partners. Some of our latest research topics include:

Equipment & Capabilities

At GulfSCEI, we use cutting-edge technology to support our research and mission. We house multiple custom servers for data processing and analysis and numerous workstations. We also maintain and deploy drones with specialized optical technology and other sensors. Find out more about our ever-expanding equipment and capabilities with the button below.

Tour Our Capabilities

Recent Publications

• Alshawi, R., Ferdaus, M., Abdelguerfi, M., Kendall, N., Pathak, K., Sloan, S., "Imbalance-Aware Culvert-Sewer Defect Segmentation Using an Enhanced Feature Pyramid Network," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - IEEE, 2025, doi: 10.1109/TSMC.2025.3579706.
• Holmberg, E, Ioup, E., Abdelguerfi, M., "Knowledge Graph-Based Multi-Agent Path Planning in Dynamic Environments using WAITR," The 2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), Washington D.C., U.S., 2024, doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.19469.
• Schmidt, A., Pokhrel, P., Ferdaus, M., Abdelguerfi, M., Ioup, E, Dobson, D., "Physics-Regularized Buoy Forecasts: A Multi-Hyperparameter Approach Using Bounded Random Search," The First International Conference on Technologies for Marine and Coastal Ecosystems, Spain, November, 2024. (Recipient of Research Track Best Paper Award)
• Sandner, E., Schmidt, A., Pokhrel, P., Ioup, E, Dobson, D., Guetl, C., "A Multiple-Location Modeling Scheme for Physics-Regularized Networks: Recurrent Forecasting of Fixed-Location Buoy Observations," The First International Conference on Technologies for Marine and Coastal Ecosystems, Spain, November, 2024.
• Ferdaus, M., Abdelguerfi, M., Ioup, E, Dobson, D., Kendal, N., Pathak, K., Sloan, S., "Kanice: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks with Interactive Convolutional Elements," The 4th International Conference on AI-ML Systems, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, October, 2024.(Recipient of Research Track Best Paper Award)
• Ferdaus, M., Abdelguerfi, M., Kendall, N., Pathak, K., Joe, T., "Widened Attention-Enhanced Atrous Convolutional Network for Efficient Embedded Vision Applications Under Resource Constraint," The Journal of Advanced Intelligent Systems - Wiley, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202300480.
• Schmidt, A., Pokhrel, P., Abdelguerfi, M., Ioup, E., Dobson, D., "Forecasting Features Recorded by Buoys Using Physics Informed Neural Networks and Numerical Ocean Models," IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2024, doi: 10.1109/JOE.2024.3378408.
• Holmberg, E, Ioup, E., Abdelguerfi, M., "Optimization Via GPU-Accelerated Proximal Recurrence Strategies," The 2023 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), Sorrento, Italy, 2023, pp. 2920-2929, doi: 10.1109/Big-Data59044.2023.

Gallery

Make a Gift

Please consider helping the GulfSCEI center by making your tax-deductible donation today. Use the link below to make your one-time or recurring gift. Make sure to select Gulf States Center For Environmental Informatics (GulfSCEI) in the options listed. Thank you!

Contact

The GulfSCEI center is located at The University of New Orleans. Inquiries should go to gulfsceidirector@uno.edu.