Computer Science

(From Eagle Drive magazine, December 2023)

It had been on their minds for a while.   

But computer science professors Doug Talbert, Ph.D., and William Eberle, Ph.D., weren’t the only faculty members and researchers contemplating the need for conversations and collaborations regarding emerging artificial intelligence technology at Tennessee Tech. Now – with the establishment of a new center called MInDS – departments can work together to advance the role of AI on campus.

“There’s already a ton going on in artificial intelligence, but we’ve been like a bunch of little islands – sometimes we work together, sometimes we don’t,” Talbert said. “We can be a lot more effective if we coordinate. The center will facilitate those conversations.”

Talbert and Eberle serve as co-directors of MInDS, which stands for Machine Intelligence and Data Science. They are also part of a campus task force focused on AI. 

“We’ve talked about an AI center for a while, but the task force gave us a good reason to move forward with it now, along with the AI Tennessee Initiative,” Talbert said, referring to a statewide effort led by Tech alumna Lynne Parker, Ph.D., to position Tennessee as a leader in the data-intensive knowledge economy. “The landscape of large-scale educational and research opportunities in AI is evolving rapidly, so we needed an organization to coordinate resources and responses.”

MInDS, which launched in August 2023 and is housed within Volpe Library, operates similarly to the university’s Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center. Both are part of the College of Engineering.

“When you think about cyber at Tennessee Tech, you think about CEROC,” Talbert said. “MInDS is the same but on the AI side – not that we’re doing it all, but we’re sort of the portal into that world here on campus.” 

The mission of MInDS is to foster workforce development and knowledge creation in artificial intelligence and data science through education, research and service to drive innovation and empower faculty and students to thrive in the knowledge age. Committees are being formed to promote interdisciplinary communication regarding educational and research activities related to AI and data science.

“This will allow for the sharing of knowledge, identification of collaboration and resource-sharing opportunities and better coordination of responses to external opportunities with funding agencies, government organizations or industry partners,” Talbert said.

And, just as CEROC offers CyberCorps service scholarships through the National Science Foundation, MInDS is piloting its own workforce development scholarship program, AI Corps, to address the national demand for highly trained AI professionals. The first cohort of scholarship recipients includes juniors Jamie Boyd, Jared Scott and Kashaina Nucum and graduate student Ethan Owens.

“AI is the next big technological leap we must make,” Boyd said. “It can streamline many processes, and I want to be able to understand it to utilize it.”

AI Corps is already opening career doors for Boyd: “Companies that probably wouldn’t have noticed me before are noticing me now, and I think it will keep opening doors for me in the future because of any internships, conferences or guidance I receive from being a member. All of these will help me become a stronger data scientist and candidate for the job.” 

Boyd is excited about the MInDS center as well since it provides an avenue for Tech students to get more engaged with AI. “AI is an ambiguous entity, and it takes a lot to understand it,” she said. “I believe the center can help students understand AI by connecting them to the resources they need.” 

And not just computer science majors.

“Every major is being exposed to AI in one way or another,” Eberle said.

Talbert said MInDS is addressing a national focus on workforce development in the AI space.

“Our AI Corps students are part of that effort,” he said. “We’re also forming an advisory board to determine what skills students need to be workforce-ready when they graduate and what activities they can do both inside and outside the classroom to accomplish that.”

Plans are underway for the AI Corps scholars to attend the annual Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society conference in May.

“It is a great conference for introducing students to AI research,” said Talbert, who also serves as FLAIRS’s program chair and co-chair of tracks on healthcare and XAI (Explainable Artificial Intelligence). Eberle is the treasurer of FLAIRS and co-chair of a special track on AI Workforce Development.

It won’t be the first time Tech students have participated in FLAIRS. In May 2023, graduate student Mateo Gannod presented his paper, “Semantic Segmentation with Multispectral Satellite Images of Waterfowl Habitat,” covering research done with Tech biology Ph.D. candidate Nick Masto and biology professor Brad Cohen, Ph.D. The project looked at how to use artificial neural networks to assist in the management of the environment to better support the duck population.

Kate Phillips, now a graduate student, received the Best Student Paper Award for her research paper titled “The Complexity/Accuracy Tradeoff and Group Bias in Machine Learning-Based Trauma Triage Models,” which she presented at FLAIRS. 

Back on campus, MInDS hosted a meeting with Vanderbilt University in October 2023 to kick off a collaborative effort between universities that support the Mid-TN AI for Interdisciplinary Imaging Interpretation Alliance. The joint program also includes departments from Tennessee State University, Fisk University and more who are working on AI-related projects, research and community inquiries.

As minds continue coming together at Tech, AI ideas and opportunities will keep flowing.