2023 Annual Highlights Report

INSTITUTE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DATA SCIENCE (IAD) 2023 Highlights Report

Our Mission The Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (IAD) brings together researchers, labs, institutes and centers of excellence at the University at Buffalo that are focused on advancements in AI, data science, computational science and related areas of research to tackle complex problems.

Our mission is to be international thought leaders in advancing the science and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and human-machine partnerships in addressing societally critical challenges. We will accomplish this by bringing together educators, researchers, students and external partners from across UB and beyond to make significant breakthroughs in creating new technologies, developing open-source tools for improving AI productivity and disseminating knowledge for the community.

2021

103

500+

1,116

INSTITUTE ESTABLISHED

SUBSCRIBERS TO IAD INSIGHTS NEWSLETTER

11

DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS

IAD FACULTY AFFILIATES and growing

TOTAL ALUMNI

POSSIBLE COLLABORATIONS TO SOLVE SOCIETAL PROBLEMS

Our Research Focus Areas

Autonomy and Robotics

Biotech, Genomics and Pharmaceuticals

Computational Research and Modeling

Computer Vision and Machine Learning

Chemistry and Materials

Finance, Business and Management

Zoom in on Research

A closer look at three of our many ongoing projects

Pacific Ring of Fire Project Receives NSF CAREER Award 20M for National AI Institute for Exceptional Education

$

The National AI Institute for Exceptional Education is a National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institute led

by UB and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

Nearly 3.4 million children require speech and language services and are at risk of falling behind in their academic and social-emotional development without timely intervention by speech and language pathologists (SLPs).

The National AI Institute for Exceptional Education aims to close this gap by developing advanced AI technologies to scale SLPs’ availability and services such that no child in need of speech and language services is left behind.

This work leverages data-driven model design, high performance computing, and 3D virtual reality to construct unprecedented high-resolution 3D models of plate tectonics to investigate a new class of volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped zone around the Pacific Ocean.

Revolutionizing Treatments with Cancer Moonshot Immuno-Oncology Translational Network (IOTN) The IOTN is designed to accelerate the generation of novel mechanism-driven immune-based cancer prevention and therapies and the development of safe and effective personalized immuno-oncology approaches.

Foundational Research

Health Sciences

Legal, Ethics and Fairness

Natural Language Processing

Privacy, Trust and Information Security

Social Science

“I’m passionate about using data science and robotics to break down barriers in education, especially for children with learning challenges.”

Shekoufeh Sadeghi 1st Year CSE PhD Student

Signature Events 2023 Distinguished Speaker Series Each year, we bring some of the nation’s most prominent researchers and innovators in the areas of artificial intelligence, computational science and data science from academia, government and industry to speak on topics of interest to the Western New York community.

Meet Our Speakers

Poster sessions during IAD Days with delicious food for thought and laughter.

Joga Gobburu, PhD

Henry Huang, PhD

Co-founder & Chairman of the Board Pumas-AI, Inc., Professor & Director, Center for Translational Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Laboratory Fellow, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Research Professor at Washington State University

IAD Days: The AI and Data Science Symposium UB’s IAD Days are an annual celebration of big data, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the University at Buffalo. The event attracts some of the nation’s most prominent AI and data science scholars to run workshops, host lectures and increase networking opportunities for students and faculty.

Pramod Varshney, PhD

Kavita Bala, PhD

Distinguished Professor Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), Syracuse University

Dean, Cornell Bowers CIS and Professor of Computer Science, Cornell University

Our Affiliates Work Collaboratively Our affiliates are not just computer scientists and engineers. Our vision is to foster interdisciplinary research and development to continue to move the community in new and interesting directions.

Graduate School of Education 1

Research and Economic Development 1 School of Nursing 1 School of Social Work 1

College of Arts and Sciences 18

School of Architecture and Planning 2 School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences 3 School of Management 4

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences 54

School of Public Health and Health Professions 10 Jacobs School of Medicine 10

Expanding Our Reach Within UB and Beyond

Our Education

DEGREE PROGRAMS

4 2

GRADUATE PROGRAMS MICROCREDENTIALS

10

ENROLLMENT 2022-23

891

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

GRADUATE STUDENTS

“UB and CDSE fostered an environment that allowed me to tailor my education to explore areas of interest related to various high performance computing methodologies and technologies while also providing focused mentorship relating to my chosen research project.”

Boris Boutkov, CDSE PhD 2019

IAD’s Educational Leadership Team Rachael Hageman Blair, PhD Associate Director of Education Associate Professor Department of Biostatistics School of Public Health and Health Professions

Sreyasee Das Bhattacharjee, PhD

Johannes Hachmann, PhD

Engineering Sciences (Data Science) MS Program Director Associate Professor Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Engineering Sciences (Artificial Intelligence) MS Program Director

Sarah Muldoon, PhD

Assistant Professor of Teaching Department of Computer Science and Engineering School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Associate Professor Department of Mathematics College of Arts and Sciences

Computational and Data Enabled Sciences PhD Program Interim Director

Our Degree Programs

Computational and Data-Enabled Sciences PhD The Computational and Data Enabled Sciences PhD addresses research challenges in a variety of fields by integrating large-scale computing and big data analysis, training scientists to effectively analyze big data and multisource datasets. By combining expertise in computing, data sciences and domain sciences, students are equipped with the skills to tackle complex problems and solve grand challenges in their respective fields.

Data Sciences and Applications MPS The Master of Professional Studies in Data Sciences and Applications program focuses on equipping students with the necessary skills in analytics to derive valuable insights from large and diverse datasets. Students will receive training in various data mining and machine learning techniques, enabling them to analyze and extract meaningful information from complex data.

Engineering Science (Artificial Intelligence) MS This Engineering Sciences MS with a course focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a multidisciplinary program designed to train students in the areas of machine learning, programming languages, deep learning algorithms and advanced artificial neural networks that use predictive analytics to solve real-world problems.

Engineering Science (Data Science) MS The Engineering Science MS with a course focus in Data Science offers a comprehensive education in big data and analysis. Students gain knowledge, expertise and practical training in data collection and management, data analytics, scalable data-driven discovery and fundamental concepts.

At the forefront of innovation in AI and data science.

Innovation in artificial intelligence and data science has significant potential to unlock solutions that address some of society’s biggest challenges. I am honored to lead the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science in continuing its mission of conducting important multidisciplinary research and educational programs. We remain dedicated to our objective of being at the forefront of innovation in AI and data science.

Collectively, our IAD affiliates have accomplished many amazing things in 2023. One of the signature moments was the $20M grant from National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to establish the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education at UB. Many IAD affiliates were on the working groups for the SUNY Strategic Research and Investment (STRIVE) task force, contributing to the President’s UB | AI Chat Series (a two-year series exploring how UB faculty across disciplines are harnessing artificial intelligence for the public good), serving as invited speakers for the Graduate School of Education’s AI + Education Learning Community Series, and bringing technologies to the community for outreaching and broadening participation events. I am so proud of our IAD affiliates for what they have accomplished in 2023.

Going forward, with our IAD affiliate’s support and commitment, I’m confident that we will build an even brighter and stronger future for IAD and UB. We will continue to offer monthly brainstorming sessions among our faculty and local community thought leaders and hold regular office hours for anyone who wants to stop by IAD to learn and chat about what AI and data science can do for your research, work and society. Together, we will make our IAD known within the University of Buffalo and beyond.

JinJun Xiong SUNY Empire Innovation Professor and Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science

4/2024

University at Buffalo, 215 Lockwood Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 | ub-iad@buffalo.edu | buffalo.edu/iad