In a project at Stony Brook University Hospital, undergraduate student Amy Chen is using artificial intelligence to detect ground-level ozone damage on plants. Chen’s work takes place in an ozone garden located atop the Health Sciences Center, within the Stony Brook Heights Rooftop Micro-Farm. This area provides fresh produce for patient nutrition and is managed by the Nutrition Division of the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine with help from student volunteers.
“I’ve never had direct research experience other than like in some of my classes,” said Chen, who studies information systems and minors in environmental studies. “I wanted to do something that involves me being outside because I really miss being in nature.”
The garden is part of the National Ozone Garden Network, which is funded by NASA’s TEAM II program. The network supplies specific plant species that act as bio-indicators for ozone pollution. “Plants can serve as bio-indicators of ozone, and so that means they can visually show the ozone damage on the leaves of their plants,” said Guanyu Huang, assistant professor at the Program in Public Health and School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. He added that the garden offers “an opportunity to tell the people what’s going on, what’s the damage of ozone, not only public health, but also plants and agriculture.”
Visible signs of ozone damage include leaf discoloration such as yellowing or spotting, stippling, and premature dropping. According to Chen, snap beans have been especially effective at showing these signs in Stony Brook’s garden. An air quality sensor collects data for a national database used by scientists like Huang.
Data collected during June and July indicated relatively low local ozone concentrations compared to atmospheric measuring systems elsewhere. However, Suffolk County continues to fall short of federal air quality standards for ozone according to reports from organizations such as the American Lung Association.
Catherine Kier, professor of pediatrics and division chief of pediatric pulmonary at Stony Brook Medicine, noted that persistent high levels of ozone from vehicles and industrial sites can impact health—especially among seniors, children, and vulnerable groups—particularly during extreme heat events.
The ongoing presence of plant damage has broader implications. Huang stated this “can harm our commercial farming agricultural production and impact human health.” He emphasized: “We want to show people that the air pollution is real. We actually can see it… We want to visualize the damage of their air pollution to show not only damage to the plants but also to our health.”
Chen will further develop her technical skills through SUNY SOAR (Summer Opportunity for Academic Research). She plans to use a convolutional neural network—a type of AI model—to automatically detect leaf damage from images captured with a GoPro camera while factoring in environmental variables like temperature and cloud cover. These efforts contribute both to her undergraduate thesis and broader scientific understanding.
Becca Hatheway, director at UCAR Center for Science Education in Boulder—which is affiliated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research—explained how data from gardens nationwide informs understanding about spatial and seasonal patterns in ozone levels. She said this information helps make air quality alerts more responsive for those most at risk.
“At our network workshop, our garden hosts will do some training, come together and talk about ideas and resources. We also provide a stipend that can give support to the garden hosts to do the activities that you are already doing in their garden here at Stony Brook,” Hatheway said. “Other places are using it to actually build out a garden if they didn’t have any — Stony Brook has a wonderful garden space here.”
