Kevin Ponto, associate professor at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), is among nine campus PIs whose projects were awarded funding in the latest round of the American Family Funding Initiative, a unique sponsored research partnership between American Family Insurance and UW–Madison through the Data Science Institute.
Ponto and co-PI Ross Tredinnick, a systems programmer at WID, received a year of funding for their data science research. Their project aims to create a novel method for detecting vehicular hail damage using sensing technology found on consumer devices. The proposed product will enable a consumer to document hail damage remotely and asynchronously, thereby alleviating the need to send an individual into the field to make assessments in person.
American Family Insurance has committed $10 million over 10 years to support UW–Madison research with potential to fuel discovery in data science, while creating value for industry and society. Since its launch in spring 2020, 40 teams of UW–Madison faculty and collaborators have been awarded nearly six million dollars through this internal funding competition.
A seventh round of funding will be announced in January 2025. Project summaries and PI bios are available at the data science @ uw website.
-Cris Carusi
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