Modeling human-AI collaboration for safe civil infrastructure

This project explores how humans and artificial intelligence (AI) agents can collaborate to improve operational safety in civil infrastructure systems, such as airports, water treatment facilities, ground transportation networks, and small modular nuclear reactors. As these systems face growing safety and resilience challenges—due to climate change, cyber-physical risks, and aging infrastructure—there is a critical need to develop simulation-based tools that model how humans and AI agents can jointly respond to abnormal scenarios.

The student will begin with a literature review focused on human factors, failure scenarios, and recent advances in AI-assisted decision-making for critical infrastructure. They will then help develop interactive simulations to model safe and unsafe operational conditions. These simulations, which may be created using platforms like Unity or Python-based interfaces, will be used to study human-AI teaming under uncertainty. Through these experiments, we aim to gain insight into how AI can support situational awareness, guide operator decisions, and improve real-time risk mitigation.

Depending on the student’s interests and background, the project may emphasize engineering system modeling, human-computer interaction, simulation/game development, or policy implications of AI in safety-critical environments. The student will gain experience in interdisciplinary research and have opportunities to shape the research direction toward applications in civil systems, emergency management, or AI governance.