Agricultural leftovers — biomass such as misshapen sweet potatoes or their discarded green tops — will soon get a new life in a new form. The four-year Resource Engineering Framework for Responsible, Augmented Modeling Engagement (REFRAME) project is developing a path a circular bioeconomy where biomass is repurposed to create new materials and buisiness opportunities.
Funded by a grant from Schmidt Sciences, the modular, AI-enabled, open-source platform will analyze the potential to convert previously discarded biomass into biofuels or other bioproducts.
REFRAME PIllars
Legacy & Surrogate Modeling
Led by Debjani Sihi, the Models pillars will identify legacy models in the supply chain that have been developed for years that are open source and that have been tackling one aspect of the supply chain — for example, agronomic models that analyze availability of biomass. This pillar will be critical in discovering how we can make connections between the models to increase efficiency in the pipeline of information.
Digtial Backbone
Led by Cranos Williams, the Digital Backbone pillar will create a digital environment where we can store and have the computing capacity to be able to run a model multiple times so that we can create AI surrogates that are much faster. By creating simplified versions of these models that run faster, we have the potential to predict things that were not previously possible with the legacy models. The resulting pipeline of models will become accessible to anyone out there as an AI-enhanced, open-source platform.
Stakeholder Engagement
Led by Joe Sagues, the Stakeholder Engagment platform works with industry stakeholders to receive vital perspectives for application of the REFRAME platform during its development and testing. The end goal is to have REFRAME used in research, policy and industry and extemded to external contributors.
NC State’s REFRAME Project Will Harness AI To Identify Business Opportunities in Crop Leftovers
NC State University researchers will use a grant from Schmidt Sciences to develop an AI-enabled, open-source platform that can analyze the potential to convert agricultural leftovers — biomass such as misshapen sweet potatoes or their discarded green tops — into biofuels or other bioproducts, creating new business opportunities.
Principal Investigator Assistant Professor Bio & Ag Engineering, Agricultural Analytics Director, Data Sci. & AI Academy North Carolina State University
Debjani Sihi
Legacy and Surrogate Model Lead Assistant Professor Department of Plant and Microbial Biology North Carolina State University
Cranos Williams
Digital Backbone Lead Goodnight Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Analytics, Electrical and Computer Engineering NC State University Digital Backbone Lead
Joe Sagues
Stakeholder Engagement Lead Assistant Professor Biological & Agricultural Engineering Department North Carolina State University
Lauren Maynard
Interdisciplinary Project Launch Director Office of Research and Innovation NC State University
Mahmoud Sharara
Associate Professor and Extension Specialist Biological & Agricultural Engineering Department; Director, Animal and Poultry Waste Management Center (APWMC), North Carolina State University
Chris Reberg-Horton
Professor & Extension Organic Cropping Specialist Crop and Soil Sciences North Carolina State University Platform Director of Resilient Agricultural Systems, NC Plant Sciences Initiative, North Carolina State University
Jeremy Guest
Levenick Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Director, Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy Associate Director for Research, Institute for Sustainability, Energy, & Environment (iSEE) University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Mariella Carbajal
Postdoctoral Research NC Plant Sciences Initiative Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering EnBiSys Research Laboratory
Laura Mora
PhD Student Operations Research Program North Carolina State University
Graham Louis
PhD Student Crop & Soil Sciences Department Global Change Fellow SE Climate Adaptation Science Center North Carolina State University
Kecheng Dai
PhD Student IDEALS Lab Biological & Agricultural Engineering North Carolina State University
Wenjun Guo
PhD Student Civil & Environmental Engineering University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Brad Lewis
Program Manager, Ag Analytics Platform Plant Science Initiative North Carolina State University
Jason Jones
Director of Economics, ICF PhD – Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M
Bruce McCarl
University Distinguished Professor, Texas A&M Ph.D. Management Science, Pennsylvania State University
Jason Hales
Computational Scientist Idaho National Laboratory
Keaton Flake
Software Engineer Idaho National Laboratory
Damon Hartley
Senior Scientist and Deputy Relationship Manager to the Bioenergy Technologies Office Idaho National Laboratory
Tom Richard
Professor Emeritus of Biological Engineering Penn State University
REFRAME is funded by Schmidt Sciences and is part of its Virtual Institute on Feedstocks of the Future (VIFF), an initiative with a mission to support science, technology and engineering research focused on leveraging underused biomass as alternative feedstocks for biomanufacturing.
