Dr. Jian Tao

In June 2022, Texas A&M University was awarded $1.2M for the Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program 2022 (PSIAP-2022) funding opportunity. The project aims to build a digital-twin-enabled testbed with state-of-the-art user interface/user experience technologies and advanced simulation models to provide a photorealistic virtual reality environment for first responders and emergency managers to engage, experience, and explore the latest sensing and communication technologies. Digital Twins, essentially virtual replicas of physical systems, offer unique benefits in testing and refining new technologies and products under various scenarios. In this talk, we will present the ongoing effort to design and develop the testbed, providing insights into its conception, implementation, and potential impacts. We will also briefly talk about potential collaborations with the IEEE MOVE Program through the IEEE Public Safety Initiative.

Biography:

Dr. Jian Tao is an Assistant Professor from the Section of Visual Computing & Computational Media in the School of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts at Texas A&M University. He is also the Director of the Digital Twin Lab and the Assistant Director for Project Development at the Texas A&M Institute of Data Science. Tao received his Ph.D. in Computational Astrophysics from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008 and worked on computational frameworks for numerical relativity, computational fluid dynamics, coastal modeling, and other applications at Louisiana State University before he joined Texas A&M in 2016. In 2018, Tao led the Texas A&M team to the final of both the ASC18 and SC18 student cluster competitions. He is a faculty advisor of the Texas A&M 12th Unmanned Team for the SAE/GM AutoDrive Challenge Competition. Supported by a grant from the Department of Commerce, Tao is leading an effort to build a digital twin for the Disaster City managed by the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service. Tao is an NVIDIA DLI University Ambassador and a contributor to the SPEC CPU 2017 benchmark suite. He currently serves as the Testbed Committee Co-Chair of the IEEE Public Safety Technology Initiative. His research interests include digital twin, numerical modeling, machine learning, data analytics, distributed computing, visualization, and workflow management.