Students working on a project with an international component may be eligible for additional support. Please check with faculty sponsors to see if the Charles S. Brown, Jr. and Renee A. Brown International Project Fund supports their project.

Kick-off Event
April 7, 2025 | 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m. | Free pizza
View event details

Application Deadline
April 16, 2025

Faculty Research Selections
April 28, 2025

Research Work Begins
Dependent on project

*International Component - Projects with an international component are eligible for a one time $5,000 budget. Funding can be used to support international travel for the student or faculty member, if accompanied by the student. (This opportunity is made possible by a gift from Saunders MBA alum, Charlie Brown.)

Optimum Loan Pricing Using Credit Rating Reports

Professor Sriniwas Mahapatro

The central research question of this study is: Can textual information from credit rating reports enhance the prediction of borrower creditworthiness and improve loan pricing accuracy? The specific objectives include:

1. Assess whether incorporating textual analysis alongside credit rating letter grades enhances the accuracy of borrower credit risk assessments.
2. Examine whether credit markets incorporate textual information from rating reports in practice.
3. Investigating whether loan pricing and loan covenants are determined solely by credit rating letter grades or if the textual content of rating reports provides additional explanatory power.
4. Develop recommendations and best practices to enhance the effective use of credit rating data in lending decisions.

Skills required

1. Handling large databases
2. Python
3. NLP
4. Working Knowledge of Gen AI
5. Basic understanding of finance & accounting data

Duration of the Project

Two semesters

System integration at Rochester Regional Health

Professor Quang Bui

A research co-op is needed to support Epic System’s clinical integration and systemization efforts to reduce technical debt. This includes conducting research, developing presentations, and identifying best practices. The role will involve creating a vendor assessment matrix to compare care standard and CDS content providers, coordinating initial projects, and evaluating the value and impact of each project and program.

Skills required

1. Technical & Analytical Skills: Healthcare IT Knowledge: 
   1. Understanding of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) systems, especially Epic.
   2. Vendor & Technology Evaluation: Experience with vendor assessment matrices, comparing providers, and assessing their impact. 
   3. Technical Debt Awareness: Understanding of how outdated or inefficient systems impact operations.
2. Project Management & Coordination:
   1. Stakeholder Coordination: Working with internal teams and vendors to gather requirements and evaluate solutions.
   2. Impact Assessment: Evaluating project effectiveness and reporting on findings.
3. Communication & Presentation:
   1. Report Writing & Documentation: Summarizing research findings in a clear, structured way
   2. Presentation Development: Creating professional presentations for leadership.
   3. Collaboration: Ability to work with cross-functional teams.
4. Bonus Skills: certifications or exposure to Epic software is a plus

Duration of the Project

Artificial Intelligence Proliferation in the United States

Professor Shubhobrata Palit

In this project, we aim to map the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence technologies by the top tech companies in the US. We will study the development of AI technologies by Nvidia, AMD, FAANG and Big Tech companies over the last 18 years. The project involves collection of supply chain and innovation data followed by data analysis. The objective is to understand the AI ecosystem proliferated in the US over the last two decades.

Skills required

A graduate student proficient with Stata or/and R or/and Python and the ability to work with large datasets is ideal for this project. They need to have their own high performance laptop (with a minimum of 500 GB hard disk and 32 GB RAM). They should also have the motivation and the drive to follow the lead of the faculty. A senior undergraduate student with the relevant skills may also prove to be a good fit.

Duration of the Project

Two semesters

Is Generative AI Transformative or Disruptive to Business?

Professor Manlu Liu

This study aims to investigate whether generative AI serves as a transformative or disruptive force in the  business setting. As generative AI technologies rapidly evolve, organizations face both unprecedented opportunities and challenges. By analyzing data from multiple resources,  the research will assess whether generative AI enhances existing business models (transformative) or fundamentally alters or replaces them (disruptive), offering insights into how organizations can strategically navigate this evolving landscapeThis study aims to investigate whether generative AI serves as a transformative or disruptive force in the  business setting. As generative AI technologies rapidly evolve, organizations face both unprecedented opportunities and challenges. By analyzing data from multiple resources,  the research will assess whether generative AI enhances existing business models (transformative) or fundamentally alters or replaces them (disruptive), offering insights into how organizations can strategically navigate this evolving landscape

Skills required

I am looking for a student who is highly motivated to learn about research and has a strong work ethic. Basic analytical skills are preferred.

Duration of the Project

Measuring the impact of training interventions on circular entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intentions 

Professor Israa Thiab

Measuring the impact of training interventions on circular entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intentions 

Skills required

• Subject recruitment
• Event logistics

• Survey and data management

Duration of the Project

Enhancing Information Assurance: A GraphRAG-Based Framework for Proactive Vulnerability Management 

Professor Ali Tosyali

In this study, we explore the following research question: Can a GraphRAG-based framework mitigate knowledge leakage and adversarial attack risks in generative AI systems while maintaining performance and adaptability. The research involves constructing a domain-specific knowledge graph populated with entities such as regulatory guidelines, threat intelligence feeds, vulnerabilities, remediation strategies, user roles, and query contexts. Relationships between these entities are modeled to capture connections like causation, access rights, and similarity. The system will be tested using simulated adversarial scenarios, comparing the effectiveness of GraphRAG in preventing knowledge leakage and mitigating malicious prompts against baseline generative AI systems.

 Skills required

• Python (pandas, sklearn, pytorch, and pytorch-geometric)
• Data analysis
• Willing to learn new things
• A graduate student would be appropriate for this work

Duration of the Project

Online Communities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Professor Quang Bui

Recently, online communities such as StackOverflow and TripAdvisor have begun to experiment with AI to streamline processes and enhance the quality of interactions. To understand the impact of AI integration in online communities, this project aims to develop comprehensive documentation of AI integration within these communities and identify its effects on users. Students will work in a diverse team consists of Chinese and US researchers, PhD and undergraduate students. Example tasks are:

• Collect publicly-available data from websites. If necessary, write script to scrap data.
• Run analyses (e.g., sentiment analysis, topic modeling)
• Assist with interviews and/or survey development
• Meet in weekly-meetings to present results

Depending on the contribution, student will have a chance to be one of the authors in submitting the work to a leading conference in the MIS field.

Skills required

Undergraduate student is preferred

•  Excellent work ethic and a strong motivation to learn
•  Proficient communication skills
•  Solid organizational and project management skills
• Familiar with Python to conduct various analyses (e.g., sentiment analysis, topic modeling) or to scrap data from website

Duration of the Project

Artificial Intelligence in Hospitality and Tourism Industry: A Critical Review

Professor Muhammet Kesgin

This research aims to critically review the application of artificial intelligence in hospitality and tourism theory and practice. It seeks to synthesize existing research to summarize what is known, as well as identify the knowledge gaps in this domain compared to others. The goal is to synthesize the literature to propose a research agenda on the topic. Additionally, this research aims to examine how policymakers and practitioners in hospitality and tourism develop and implement artificial intelligence systems. Special emphasis will be placed on the responsible, ethical, and effective implementation of artificial intelligence in the domain. The project will aim to propose at least one research design using experimental research.     .

Skills required

Skill Required:

• Information Seeking, Analyzing, Synthesizing, Critical Thinking, Evaluating, and Problem Solving.

Duration of the Project

Professor Matthew Vollmer

My Ph.D. dissertation research covered Sexual Consent Communication. This project will examine a dataset on how people reported giving and receiving sexual consent. The role of the SRI will be to code qualitative data for an upcoming project on social marketing of sexual consent. Understanding how people perceive consent exchange can guide social marketing campaigns to promote the practice of using affirmative sexual consent. Future research using the results of this coding will seek to optimize social marketing strategies and test the effectiveness of message framing, which age groups are most receptive to different messages, and which affirmative sexual consent marketing efforts lead to the biggest change in people's behaviors.

Skills required

Ideally, the person would have already taken a research methods class or have experience in a research setting (but not required). Current CITI (IRB) training is a plus! If not, you will take this training as part of the SRI program. Analytical mindset and critical thinking are required.

Duration of the Project

Professor Victor Perotti

Saunders students have played a role over the last few years in helping RIT to do its year end financial forecasting using machine learning. For this project, a student will assist in the design and development of a novel AI agent to explain patterns in financial forecasts developed by the existing machine learning model. The agent can serve as a simple interface for humans to query model predictions and potentially reasoning.

Skills required

• Willingness to learn
• Python coding experience
• Data preparation/analysis experience (skearn, pandas)

Duration of the Project