Patrick Beukema

Hi! I’m Patrick, a scientist and engineer passionate about building AI. I lead a new AI team at Ai2 focused on large-scale, mixed-modality planetary models supporting a range of applications—including climate science, wildfire management, food security, maritime intelligence, sustainability, and beyond. To make these models most useful, we are building earth-system, an open and accessible platform for earth intelligence. If you have expertise and interest in advancing the state of the art in this space, please reach out, we are actively hiring researchers and engineers. I host a regular seminar at Ai2 spanning diverse topics in applied AI, many of these talks can be found on Ai2’s YouTube.
In addition to my work at Ai2, I provide guidance to non-profits interested in leveraging AI for science and biomedical research, sustainability, and addressing climate change. I also consult for hedge funds and stealth startups.
Before Ai2, I worked in applied machine learning across startups, tech, and academia (Carnegie Mellon, McGill, and University of Pittsburgh). I earned my Ph.D. from the Center for Neuroscience and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. My research focused on neural plasticity and (human) brain decoding. Earlier, I explored recurrent neural networks and causal inference. Before graduate school, I studied math and logic at McGill and spent a lot of time riding a Marinoni through Montreal’s often icy streets.
I live in the majestic Pacific Northwest with my wife and two young boys.
Jun 25, 2025 | arXiv on modeling a critical wildfire risk factor. ICML-TerraBytes. |
Jun 11, 2025 | CVPR Keynote: Closing the Gap: Building Planetary AI for Real-World Users |
Jun 1, 2025 | “Satellite imagery and AI” V2.0 now covering Landsat, VIIRS, S1, and S2! |
May 27, 2025 | Hiring Research Engineers to build Earth-System. |
May 15, 2025 | “Galileo” a new highly multimodal and flexible EO FM accepted at ICML. |
Mar 6, 2025 | “Atlantes” spotlight at ICLR CCAI! GitHub, arXiv, blog |
Mar 1, 2025 | “Lighthouse” accepted at ICLR ML4RS! GitHub, arXiv |
Feb 13, 2025 | New paper on foundation modeling, research led by Gabriel Tseng, arXiv |
Feb 5, 2025 | Abstract accepted at the 1st NASA/ESA Foundation Modeling conference |
Feb 1, 2025 | Hiring multiple roles (Scientists/Engineers) to build and scale earth-system! |
Dec 1, 2024 | Hiring an AI intern to build next gen multi-modal foundation models for earth! |
May 30, 2024 | “Beyond AGI: Building AI for the Planet” Thursday, May 30, 2024, 4 – 6 p.m. |
Apr 18, 2024 | Interview on the MLOps podcast: Can AI help save the planet |
Mar 15, 2024 | Blog post: Accelerating Engineering with LLMS |
Feb 25, 2024 | We have open positions for an AI engineer and an AI intern! |
Jan 26, 2024 | Invited talk on “Data and High Performance AI” at ESIP |
Jan 1, 2024 | Recognized as one of the top 100 people in AI by Business Insider. |
Dec 17, 2023 | Best paper award at NeurIPS Computational Sustainability |