June 7, 2022

RIT hosting university-wide summit on artificial intelligence

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Dear RIT Community,

RIT has scholars from every college involved with artificial intelligence. We are impressed by the breadth of work in AI, the importance of research questions being explored, and the sophistication of views of AI as a rapidly expanding field.

Now it’s time to bring together university artificial intelligence faculty for a two-day summit and planning initiative. Please save the date for the AI@RIT Summit — Oct. 6 and 7, being hosted at MAGIC Center. We will host a half day of tutorials on Oct. 6 for those new to AI, and the full Summit will be held Oct. 7.

RIT faculty have been immersed in the development of artificial intelligence processes and applications — some of today’s most promising technologies. The summit will bring together AI scholars to continue to grow and strengthen AI work at the university. It will include presentations, demonstrations, and discussions on a variety of topics. Students (e.g., Ph.D. students) will also be participating in the presentation of the posters and discussions.

RIT held a similar workshop in 2017, titled Move 78, that generated positive results. We launched an AI seminar series, and we formed the Center for Human-aware AI (CHAI). All of these early efforts have led to the MS in data science and the forthcoming MS in AI and Ph.D. in cognitive science.

This two-day workshop is a means to bring our own capabilities together — and they are substantial. It is also the next step in setting institutional priorities to further build our research and philanthropic opportunities, and to further integrate AI into undergraduate and graduate education. Together, we will examine and work on desired outcomes.

Look for a call for abstracts in the next few weeks to participate in the workshop and share information about your work.

Sincerely,

Ellen Granberg
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Ryne Raffaelle
Vice President for Research

Organizing Committee:

  • Andreas Savakis, co-chair, professor of computer engineering, Kate Gleason College of Engineering
  • Pengcheng Shi, co-chair, associate dean for research and scholarship/Ph.D. program director, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences
  • Cecilia Alm, professor, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts
  • Cathy Hain, associate vice president, University Advancement
  • David Long, director, RIT MAGIC Center
  • Ryne Raffaelle, VP for Research