PhD Candidate Mirza Md Tasnim Mukarram was awarded a travel grant from NSF by American Association for the Advancement  of Sciences to present his research poster at the 2026 annual summit.

Mirza's presentation, 'GeoAI-Driven Climate Resilience using LiDAR Urban Morphology and Spatial Deep Learning,' is focused on his research on advancing local extreme heat intelligence through spatial deep learning models integrating satellite remote sensing and airborne LiDAR-derived urban morphology data. His work focuses on supporting community resilience and decision-support systems by identifying and forecasting urban heat hotspots in Iowa. The study further incorporates Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques to determine the key environmental and urban factors contributing to extreme heat hotspot formation.