The Institute for AI is pleased to announce the recipients of our latest round of interdisciplinary seed grants. This year’s competition drew a wealth of innovative ideas from across the university, which were narrowed down through a rigorous review process. We extend our sincere gratitude to the interdisciplinary review committee for their expertise and time in selecting this year’s high-impact projects. Totaling $276,250, these grants—supported by the Provost’s Office, the Office of Research, and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences—empower our faculty to tackle complex societal challenges. The projects align with the IAI’s five convergence themes: AI in Education, Ethics of AI for Human Society, AI and Future of Health & Work, AI for 3F, and AI for Cyber & Societal Security. Below, the awarded projects are organized by convergence theme: AI in Education: Developing multi-agent world model for training AI systems and clinical personnel in emergency department Awardees: Zhen Xiang and Tianming Liu (School of Computing); and Jie Lu (Mary Frances Early College of Education) Ethics of AI for Human Society: Responsible causal AI: Reproducible designs, testable mechanisms Awardees: Jason Anastasopoulos and Ryan Powers (School of Public and International Affairs); and Akshat Lakhiwal (Terry College of Business) AI and Future of Health & Work: Interpretable deep learning linking adverse childhood experiences, biology and cognition: Identifying modifiable supports Awardees: Hee Yun Lee (School of Social Work); Yana Zavros (School of Medicine); and Khaled Rasheed and Jaewoo Lee (School of Computing) AI-driven multimodal biomarker discovery and reasoning in depression and related mental health disorders Awardees: Chao Huang (College of Public Health); Rongjie Liu (Franklin College of Arts and Sciences); and Tianming Liu (School of Computing) Building multimodal foundations for AI-pathology at UGA Awardees: Eugene Douglass (College of Pharmacy); Suchendra Bhandarkar (School of Computing); and Megan Corbett and Lilian Oliveira (College of Veterinary Medicine) AI for 3F (Farm, Food, and Forests): Building the first million-level benchmark dataset and foundation models for cost-effective poultry management Awardees: Guoming Li (College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences); and Tianming Liu, Lakshmish Ramaswamy and Ramviyas Parasuraman (School of Computing) AI-assisted breeding for anthracnose resistance in pepper Awardees: Amol Nankar, Bhabesh Dutta, Luan Oliveira and Zhihang Song (College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences); and Jin Lu and Ramviyas Parasuraman (School of Computing) AI for Cyber & Societal Security: Edge-AI for safe and efficient autonomous vehicles Awardees: Qianwen Li (College of Engineering); and Geng Yuan (School of Computing) Congratulations to all our awardees! You can read more about the impact of these projects in the full UGA news article. We also thank every investigator who submitted a proposal and contributed to the vibrant research culture at the Institute. Our sincere appreciation goes out to the entire IAI community for powering innovation in AI.
