College of Education and Health Professions Researcher Earns National Science Foundation Grant

A researcher studying the intersection of career development and engineering education in the College of Education and Health Professions has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to help students and communities better understand the future of engineering work.

Yuanlu Niu, an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Leadership and Research Methods, will partner with faculty at Emory University to help establish a new paradigm for spatial workforce science by integrating Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) into engineering education.

"The goal of the project is to help students and communities see where the future of engineering work is going and how to prepare for it," Niu said.

The nearly $250,000 grant is part of NSF's Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which aims to enhance research competitiveness by strengthening STEM capacity and capability through a portfolio of investments from talent development to local infrastructure.

"I hope the project helps translate complex data about jobs, skills, education and regional industry growth into practical guidance that supports students' career readiness and strengthens Arkansas' workforce capacity," she said.

During strategic summer residencies, faculty at Emory University will provide training in geospatial workflows, access to high-performance computing and large-scale longitudinal job advertisement data. One of the study's objectives is to establish a sustained research and education pipeline between the two universities through collaborative grant proposals, outreach and the development of specialized resources for engineering programs.

The project aims to advance workforce development and engineering education by shifting from static, descriptive analysis to predictive computational modeling. At the end of the two-year funding cycle, Niu will have developed a validated AI workforce taxonomy along with workforce-gap maps.

"I was drawn to this project because it connects my background in workforce and career development with new GeoAI tools that can explore patterns we could not easily see before," Niu said. "It is exciting to use advanced data methods for analysis and create practical resources that can help students make decisions about their futures."

Niu hopes the resources generated through the study will help students make more informed decisions about their futures. She also envisions the study helping establish the U of A as a regional leader in data-driven workforce analytics.

Methods from the project will be embedded in human resource development courses to build data literacy, and a graduate research assistant will be trained, helping support STEM participation and regional economic development.

The EPSCoR program is part of NSF's Broadening Participation portfolio, which supports efforts to build STEM education and research capacity, catalyze new areas of STEM research and develop strategic partnerships and alliances.