AI and ML for Civil Engineering: Intro and Need-to-Knows with a HEC-RAS Example: Agenda

June 9, 2026
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM Eastern

• Introduction
  • Who am I
  • Why am I giving this talk
  • Goals for the webinar
    • Ethical use of AI tools
    • Eliminating barriers for engineers to understand the tools
    • How to implement ML and AI effectively
• Narrative Context for Computers and AI
  • History of computers being implemented into everyday life
    • How they were implemented in Engineering: Slide rulers to desktop computers
  • How AI use has progressed
    • History of the elevator
    • Story of AI implementation for elevators in the 80s (warning on optimum solutions)
  • History of the first autonomous car
    • How we still don’t have fully autonomous cars
    • Discuss implementation of car automations (example of low hanging fruit individually as tasks is best practice)
• Q&A #1
• Technical Introduction to AI and ML Concepts and Jargon
  • General info for background terms
    • What is computer science, data science, machine learning, AI, etc.
    • Announcement “You are all data scientists” and discussion
  • General introduction of AL and ML
    • AI is always the frontier (jargon definitions of AI and ML)
    • Levels of AI (defining excel as level 1 for context)
    • Examples of tools at each level
• Q&A #2
• Technical dive
  • Warning about equations but it will be brief
  • Technical definition a neural network with visuals
    • Introduce coding as basic logic
  • Relation of the NN parameters to model calibration parameters engineers use
  • Discussing parameters and higher dimensional spaces (narrative only with graphics)
• Q&A #3
• HEC-RAS automation example
  • Showing basic code and how to review it
  • High dimensional model calibration (application of parameter and space intro in 6)
  • Genetic algorithm example for roughness calculations (detail dependent on time)
• Wrap up with ML and AI summary