Critical Contributions to Critical Challenges
Strategic Technology Solutions
Johns Hopkins APL leverages world-class talent and facilities to conceive and mature critical innovations across multi-domain missions spanning deep sea to space. Learn more about our capabilities in scaled hypersonics, contested logistics technologies, applied artificial intelligence, quantum and battlefield information dominance, biomanufacturing, and scaled directed energy.
Explore Our Work
Below is a sampling of APL’s critical contributions to critical challenges. Filter projects and missions by area of impact, mission area, or both.
DSEND
APL is providing technology integration, research, development, and programmatic support for an effort to design a next-generation dive suit that significantly improves mobility, safety, and flexibility for military divers.
Feedstocks for Food Production
Accelerating biomanufacturing to quickly produce safe and reliable sources of nutrition in areas where resources are scarce
Reversing the Loss of Coral Reefs
Recognizing the need to safeguard America’s coastlines and the value natural structures play in their protection, APL researchers are finding ways to use materials science to support coral reef growth and restoration.
Enlisting eDNA to Understand Ecosystems
APL researchers are using genetic information to observe animals, plants, and microbes in their natural environments, and pioneering environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis methods to study marine ecosystems that the world relies on as the foundation of global food webs.
Accelerating Air Quality Forecasts
Severe wildfires have released millions of smoke-borne contaminants into the air, setting off air quality alerts across the country. APL is using artificial intelligence to accelerate air quality forecasts and ultimately deliver a better understanding of how and where these pollutants will travel.
AI for Tipping Point Discovery
Artificial intelligence experts and oceanographers are integrating AI with traditional Earth systems modeling methods to enable scientific researchers to better understand tipping points, critical thresholds that, once crossed, could “tip” a natural Earth system into an entirely different state.
AI for Complex Systems
Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and mathematics to spur innovation and novel solutions to challenges at the intersection of Earth systems and national security
Eliminating Forever Chemicals
Multiple studies have linked PFAS exposure to harmful health effects in humans and animals, and without a natural way to break them down, the chemicals persist in soil and contaminate the environment — including water. APL scientists are developing several technologies to capture and destroy these “forever chemicals.”