Ten faculty members were selected as inaugural Artificial Intelligence (AI) Teaching Fellows, part of the Division of Academic Affairs’ effort to expand course offerings on the subject matter. The faculty will work together in a community of practice to expand and integrate AI coursework and academic programming in high demand areas including health care, cyber defense, education, AI literacy and supply chain operations.
The AI Teaching Fellows come from colleges and schools across the University, covering a wide range of disciplines, including arts and letters, business, education, engineering, sciences, cybersecurity and exercise science.
“It’s important that we bring together faculty with different backgrounds to develop coursework grounded in ethically responsible design, development, and uses of AI systems,” said Brian K. Payne, Ph.D., interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “AI doesn’t exist within a disciplinary domain, so we need to approach it through an interdisciplinary lens.”
The faculty selected as AI Teaching Fellows are:
- Md Morshed Alam, lecturer, School of Cybersecurity
- Ryan Baltrip, clinical assistant professor, Department of Marketing
- Joel Bock, lecturer, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies
- Rafael Diaz, professor, Department of Engineering Management & Systems Engineering
- Jennifer Kidd, master lecturer, Department of Teaching & Learning
- Tian Luo, associate professor, Department of STEM Education & Professional Studies
- Eva Maddox, lecturer, School of Exercise Science
- Santosh Kumar Nukavarapu, lecturer, Department of Computer Science
- Xinyue Ren, assistant professor, Department of STEM Education & Professional Studies
- Will Truran, assistant professor, Department of Art
Holly Handley, interim dean of interdisciplinary schools, will bring together the fellows regularly so they can work together on developing the courses. Handley, who previously served as a provost’s fellow for artificial intelligence, applauded the value of an interdisciplinary approach to AI.
“I am excited about the diversity of expertise that this cohort of AI Fellows will bring to our AI-focused program development,” Handley said. “I am looking forward to guiding them in their collaborative efforts.”
ODU recently had two AI certificates approved by the State Council of Higher Education and Virginia; one is Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence and the other is AI in Data Science. Through the work of the fellows, it is anticipated that six new certificates will be created. The certificates will be offered through ODUGlobal in an accelerated asynchronous format.