PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (August 26, 2025) — On the heels of the annual Labor Day Classic football rivalry between Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University, the two HBCUs are proving that when it comes to research, they’re on the same team.
Prairie View A&M University will share a $2.2 million award granted to Texas Southern University, Texas A&M University and the University of Michigan. TSU is leading the grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Air Force Office of Scientific Research, with PVAMU receiving $600,000 to lead a key portion of the work.
The funding supports the creation of the Center for Scientific Machine Learning for Material Sciences, a collaborative effort bringing together experts in applied mathematics, physics, statistics, optimization, and machine learning to accelerate materials design and discovery.
The center is led by TSU faculty members Yunjiao Wang, Ph.D., who serves as principal investigator, and Daniel Vrinceanu, Ph.D., as co-principal investigator. At PVAMU, the effort is headed by Noushin Ghaffari, Ph.D., as principal investigator, and Lin Li, Ph.D., as co-principal investigator. Together, the team will develop advanced machine learning tools to predict, optimize and simulate new materials with greater speed and accuracy.
Central to the research is the electron beam powder bed fusion (E-Beam) platform, a cutting-edge equipment used in metal additive manufacturing, which is managed in Mohsen Taheri’s, Ph.D., lab at Texas A&M University. By pairing this technology with sensor data and mathematical modeling, such as deep neural networks and SciML models, researchers aim to create data-driven, principle-guided methods to predict material microstructures and performance.
The center will not only drive innovation in manufacturing and materials science but also strengthen data science and machine learning programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). Both undergraduate and graduate students will gain hands-on experience in high-impact research, helping to expand representation in these rapidly growing fields. In summers 2024 and 2025, two hybrid workshops organized and taught by TSU and PVAMU faculty focused on training students in the fields of Machine Learning, Additive Manufacturing and their intersection. Workshops also provided soft skill enhancement opportunities for students through oral presentations, report writing opportunities, and team-based projects. Each team presented their final work in an oral presentation and prepared a poster.
By advancing both scientific discovery and educational opportunity, this project positions PVAMU and TSU at the forefront of research shaping the future of materials science and machine learning. The findings of the research are in the publication stages to be shared via journal papers and conference presentations.
Written by Joe McGinty, with contributions from Dr. Noushin Ghaffari