About Us

Forest Advanced Computing and Artificial Intelligence (FACAI) Laboratory- We go beyond conventional forest research.

• FACAI employs the paradigm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) encompassing different state-of-the-art machine learning and statistical methods to study global, regional, and local forest resource management and biodiversity conservation.
• FACAI focuses on path-defining research that has a positive impact on local people, firms, communities, and ecosystems.
• FACAI is the founding and supporting team of Science-i, a transparent and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) web platform for international research collaboration.
• FACAI's research findings are published on international journals Science, Nature, and PNAS.
• FACAI is a Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative (GFBI) continental center of research, education, and public outreach for North America, a strong advocate for international collaboration.

FACAI has two parallel foci. The economic focus (FACAI-ECON) is supervised by Prof. Mo Zhou, and the ecological focus (FACAI-ECO) is supervised by Prof. Jingjing Liang. All the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows are affiliated with FACAI-ECON, FACAI-ECO, or both.

Our diverse and vibrant team.

We are compiling the first global ground-sourced forest inventory database (GFBI) for worldwide economic and ecological research projects. We have 256G-RAM nodes at the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing, the research computing arm of Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), the University’s central IT organization, and have access to 3-Tb storage space at Purdue Data Depot, a high-capacity, fast, reliable and secure data storage service designed, configured and operated for the needs of Purdue researchers in any field and shareable with both on-campus and off-campus collaborators.

We are in close collaboration with the GFBI Hubs in Lleida (Spain) and Zurich (Switzerland), and GFBI affiliated institutions including Beijing Forestry University (China), Wageningen University and Research, and University of Florida.

Join us - We’re always looking for highly motivated graduate research assistants and post-doctoral researchers who will strengthen our laboratory with creativity and innovation. We value diversity of experience, knowledge, background and perspective and welcome applicants from various disciplines, including but not limited to ecology, economics, engineering, data science, and social science. For the most updated opportunities, please visit here.

For details, please visit our link for prospective team members and the FNR Graduate Student Handbook.

Sponsor us - Are you a sponsor and leader with vision? We are always looking for collaborators, sponsors, and joint venture partners. With high-performance computing resources and artificial intelligence, we can develop research with only a fraction of the cost. For details, please visit our link for sponsors.