UMBC received $1.5 million in congressional funding to establish the UMBC Center for Precision Aquaculture, an interdisciplinary effort to revolutionize land-based fish production through real-time monitoring and smart technology. Advanced underwater imaging, optical sensors, and AI will track fish biomass, behavior, body condition, stress signals, and early disease indicators, enabling producers to optimize tank conditions to improve growth, health, and welfare.

CSEE professor Rebecca Williams is a co-investigator on the grant and worked with CSEE professor Don Engel to advise Beamlak Bekele in developing computer vision tools to extract information about fish in underwater environments for her Computer Science MS thesis.

Read more about this project here.