AI/ML for public interest (social good) remains underrepresented compared to enterprise and personal applications, despite potential for wider impact. Public interest AI/ML works with less—less data, smaller budgets, tiny teams—while demanding more: clear explanations, fairness checks, and serving communities where errors have real consequences. The main goal is to help professionals and researchers (and enthusiasts) working in public interest make their work effective and efficient. Here’s what I (my background below) plan to cover:

Professionals, researchers, faculty, graduate students, and enthusiasts in public interest domains including urban planning, utility (transportation, energy, water), economic development, (for and not-for-profit) businesses that contribute to greater social objectives, public policy, and public health.

I currently practice and research AI/ML applications in transportation, energy, and land-use applications at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State University. My role as a research staff involves travel demand modeling for the Research Triangle Region in North Carolina through data and systems modeling, as well as leading applied AI/ML research in the domain. My current applied AI projects include improving optimization and constraint satisfaction of ML-based optimal power flow solutions using graphical neural networks and flow matching, fine-tuning geospatial embeddings using flow matching to distinguish images that are hard for humans to classify, and structured data extraction from complex public documents.

I have a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in the application of machine learning in urban utility planning. I applied Natural Language Processing/LLMs, Computer Vision, and classical ML techniques to address urban planning problems including clean energy workforce development, finding vulnerable housing, and assessing risk to energy infrastructure.

The next, official inaugural issue of the newsletter will focus on what I mean by Public Interest AI/ML, serving as a guiding framework for the newsletter and providing structure that you can use to address public interest issues.

Please provide your thoughts on this introduction, and topics you’d like for me to cover. I am looking forward to it!

While the newsletter is about AI, I commit to never deliver an article written by AI. While I might use LLMs to improve language or assist me with ideation, I will write the articles myself. If that makes them sound raw, all the better!