Newsletter June 2024

By the numbers:

10 student visits to other universities in the U.S. or Ireland
13 student exhibitors at Imagine RIT
14 technical and professional development sessions at the AWARE-AI winter retreat symposium
34 publications so far by AWARE-AI contributors, including 16 this reporting year

Photo: AWARE-AI trainees hosted an exhibit at Imagine RIT in April 2024.

Message from the Director

Happy summer from AWARE-AI!

In this newsletter, we share information about our recent activities and highlight members in the AWARE-AI program. We are also excited to announce that AWARE-AI has recently been awarded two funded supplements from the National Science Foundation.

The first supplement is for an inter-institutional collaboration that aims to establish NRT+: A Collaborative Human-Technology Integration Network Extending from Traineeship Programs with NRT partners at Clemson University (PI Lane Mears), University of Wisconsin-Madison (PI Bilge Mutlu), and Cleveland State University (PI Eric Shearer). This joint initiative is also enabling four NRT+ summits, the first of which is planned to take place at RIT in Rochester in late September 2024. Our team is extremely excited about this partnership and what the broader NRT+ community can achieve together. We are looking forward to introducing our partners soon to our Rochester, NY campus.

The second supplement is similarly dedicated to a partnership effort, the Second Iteration of the Dublin-Rochester International CRT-NRT Mobility Program, together with our partners at ML-Labs in Dublin, Ireland. We especially thank ML-Labs leadership team members Drs. Georgiana Ifrim, Brian Mac Namee and Sarah Jane Delaney for this continued cooperation, which will enable four RIT PhD students to spend over a month at ML-Labs in Fall 2024. In addition, AWARE-AI will also host four PhD students from Dublin at RIT from mid-August to mid-September. We are looking forward to the trainees' achievements in their mobility experiences. Last year’s mobility exchange nurtured intercultural exchange, global investigator and leadership skills, research dissemination and collaborations, and joint research products under review or in preparation.

Additionally, AWARE-AI has concluded the selection process for the incoming 2024-2025 traineeship cohort. We are thrilled to welcome 17 new trainees to the AWARE-AI community, with trainees joining us from multiple RIT PhD and MS STEM programs. I would also like to thank Dr. Jamison Heard for becoming the research track lead for HCI in AI while thanking Dr. Kristen Shinohara for her prior leadership. Our team has also welcomed Dr. Alex Ororbia in his new role as co-lead of the cognitive modeling for AI research track, and Dr. Ali Baheri as co-lead of the human-sensing AI software research track.

AWARE-AI is now in full preparation for its Fall 2024 activities, which will start with an intensive onboarding bootcamp August 21-23, 2024, followed by a comprehensive set of traineeship activities, many of which are also open to the wider campus community. They are in the process of being added to our AWARE-AI calendar of activities.

I hope you will enjoy the information in this newsletter. We will begin outreach about the 2025-2026 application process next semester. Applications from RIT graduate students in eligible PhD and MS programs, a list that has grown to 20 programs, will be due on March 1, 2025 via our website, for starting traineeships in Fall 2025.

The AWARE-AI program is incredibly grateful for your continued strong support.

Wishing you rewarding summer and fall experiences,

-Cissi

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Select Achievements

Photo: Dr. Bing Yan has been awarded an NSF CAREER grant (photographer: Scott Hamilton).

Congratulations to our May 2024 graduates, Gabriel Park and Margaret Gray, both now alumni from RIT’s MS program in Data Science!
The AWARE-AI leadership team published about the program’s diversification strategies at SIGCSE 2024.
AWARE-AI Project Coordinator, Shannon Regelsberger, completed the Cultural Humility Certificate at RIT.
AWARE-AI has launched its Dataset Archive, an effort led by Dr. Jamison Heard and Dr. Garreth Tigwell.
PhD student Emily Kuang was awarded the RIT Outstanding Graduate Student Award at the RIT Graduate Showcase. Congratulations, Emily!
Research led by PhD students Kevin Barkevich and Viet Nguyen was accepted to ETRA 2024.
AWARE-AI Human-sensing AI Hardware Track Lead, Ferat Sahin, chaired both IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 2023 (General Co-Chair) and IEEE Systems of Systems Engineering 2024 (General Chair) conferences.

Photo: AWARE-AI trainee, Viet Nguyen, was the first author of the paper that won Best Full Paper Award at ETRA 2024.

Dr. Kristen Shinohara presenting a poster at the SIGCSE 2024 conference

Photo: The AWARE-AI poster at SIGCSE 2024 was presented by Dr. Kristen Shinohara.

Trainee Spotlights

Saurav Singh

Saurav Singh is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), advised by Dr. Jamison Heard. Within the Adaptive Human Robot Teaming (AHRT) Lab at RIT, his doctoral research is centered on the development of human-aware systems utilizing reinforcement learning methodologies for adaptive human-robot collaboration. Concurrently, he is actively involved in a project funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), focusing on the advancement of multimodal sensor fusion techniques for aerial imagery applications. As an AWARE-AI trainee, Saurav has served as a member of the 2023-2024 AWARE-AI Trainee Council. He actively contributes to research on human-robot collaboration. Notably, he has pioneered the development of an attention-based human emotion detection system. Complementing his academic pursuits, Saurav has garnered teaching experience as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for courses in BioRobotics, Principles of Robotics, Random Signals and Noise, Engineering Analysis, and Advanced Engineering Mathematics. His commitment to advancing machine learning and robotics is underscored by multiple publications. Saurav is also driven by a passion for technology's role in sustainability, aspiring to make meaningful contributions at the intersection of technology, machine learning, and robotics.

Michael Peechatt

Michael Peechatt is a Computing and Information Sciences PhD student at the Rochester Institute of Technology's Computational Linguistics and Speech Processing (CLaSP) Lab under co-advisement of Dr. Cecilia Alm and Dr. Reynold Bailey. His research focuses on language-based multimodal machine learning modeling, with an emphasis on maintaining model robustness inspired by human cognition. Previously, he was a software engineer at Apple, focusing on accessibility and new ways to test software builds. He has served as a teaching assistant for introductory computer science coursework. He also contributed a multimodal dataset from an experiment, and he conducts research on multimodal machine learning involving numerous modalities, including eye tracking, body posture, galvanic skin response, and facial expressions for identifying user affect, with implications for human-human and human-agent teaming. Considering the increased use of biometric sensors in consumer grade products, Michael’s research addresses innovations in new machine learning methods and training protocols that integrate multimodal time series data, including identification of emotion states under collaborative scenarios. Working with an RIT U-RISE scholar, he is also involved in multimodal research that focuses on ASL interactions. He is pursuing his second AFRL research internship in summer 2024.

Faculty Spotlights

Garreth Tigwell, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Dr. Garreth Tigwell joined the School of Information in the fall of 2019 as an Assistant Professor. He is senior personnel in the AWARE-AI program and supports the HCI research track. He is co-director of the En-Ability Lab and a member of the Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research (CAIR) Lab. He studied at the University of Dundee, where he received a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, an MSc (with distinction) in User Experience Engineering, and a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction.

Dr. Tigwell’s research interests cover design, accessibility, and human-computer interaction, and he primarily focuses on improving the accessibility and usability of digital spaces by understanding challenges faced by digital creators (e.g., mobile app and website designers) and their support needs. Recently, he has been exploring with his students the role of culture in accessible design, as well as adaptable design for customized experiences to improve accessibility and usability in both common scenarios (e.g., when using mobile apps) and novel scenarios (e.g., interaction on everyday textured surfaces when using mixed reality). He has published at top-tier ACM conferences and journals such as ASSETS, CHI, CSCW, DIS, IMWUT, PACMHCI, and TACCESS. He received the best paper award at MobileHCI 2022 and an honorable mention award at CHI 2023.

Nasibeh Azadeh-Fard, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Dr. Nasibeh Azadeh-Fard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. She holds an affiliation with the AWARE-AI group in the HCI in AI research track. Her academic journey began with a B.S. in Information Technology Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology in 2009, followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Following her doctoral studies, she pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Clemson University's Risk Engineering and System Analytics Center, focusing on risk analysis and mitigation strategies for the American International Group (AIG) insurance company.

From August 2016 to August 2019, Dr. Azadeh-Fard served as a Visiting Professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at RIT. Since August 2019, she has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the same department.

Her research interests are centered around data analytics, risk analysis, and healthcare systems engineering. She is dedicated to developing and applying methods to enhance health and healthcare systems. Specifically, her work focuses on using data analytics and machine learning techniques to provide insights for healthcare practitioners and decision-makers. Her research addresses critical issues such as health equity and predicting health outcomes like hospital readmissions, extended length of stay, and in-hospital mortality. Methodologically, she focuses on improving prediction models to ensure accuracy and applicability across diverse patient populations and healthcare systems.

News

AWARE-AI 2024 Winter Symposium

Dr. Monroe Kennedy III sitting and talking with students.

Photo: Keynote speaker, Dr. Monroe Kennedy III (Stanford University), spoke with students and faculty at the 2024 winter retreat symposium.

The AWARE-AI Program hosted its third annual winter retreat symposium January 16-19, 2024. The retreat featured two distinguished keynote speakers. Dr. Jun Tani of Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology delivered a talk titled Exploring Robotic Minds Using the Free Energy Principle and Dr. Monroe Kennedy III of Stanford University delivered a talk titled Collaborative Robotics for Effective Human-Robot Teaming.

Technical and career-advancement professional development sessions included an industry research panel with panelists from Raytheon, Corteva Agriscience, and DataMinr, as well as a discussion on navigating press releases, led by RIT’s Senior Associate Director of University Communications, Vienna Carvalho, and RIT University Communications Director of Content Strategy, Mindy Mozer. There was a technical tutorial on quantifying similarities and differences between neural representations, led by RIT faculty member Dr. Richard Lange, Department of Computer Science, and a methods tutorial titled Data Analysis and Modeling in R, facilitated by RIT Assistant Professor Dr. Dustin Haraden, Department of Psychology.

Michael Peechatt presenting his research talk.

Photo: AWARE-AI trainees gave talks at the winter retreat symposium (PhD student Michael Peechatt).

Other sessions included Considerations for Careers in Academia, led by RIT Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, Dr. Torrence Sparkman; a roundtable on skills and strategies for mentoring undergraduate students, paneled by RIT faculty members Dr. Joshua Faber, Dr. L. Kate Wright, and Dr. Darren Narayan, and an informational session on using AI in research, facilitated by GCCIS/Student Success Librarian, Greyson Pasiak. Faculty and student attendees participated in a workshop focused on building community in the AI field through effective intercultural communication, led by the Director of RIT’s Diversity Theater, Tina Chapman DaCosta, and the Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion, Dr. Keith Jenkins.

AWARE-AI trainees delivered research presentations and had opportunities to network and interact with faculty and keynote speakers. Trainees who visited the Centre for Research Training in Machine Learning (ML-Labs) in Dublin shared their experience of participating in the Dublin-RIT mobility exchange. The winter retreat symposium concluded with a trainee-organized team building field trip to the Strong National Museum of Play.

MS student Liya Thomas and PhD student Will Gebhardt playing a game of Battleship at the Strong National Museum of Play.

Photo: AWARE-AI trainees visited the Strong National Museum of Play (photo by Saurav Singh).

Screenshot of Zoom session with Dublin and RIT students

Photo: AWARE-AI hosted a discussion about the first iteration of the Dublin-Rochester International CRT-NRT Mobility Program.

Spotlight on Research Track: Human-Computer Interaction in AI

The human-computer interaction (HCI) research track has investigated the use of AI-based speech recognition systems for older adults and Deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) individuals. Last year, the track focused on conducting workshops and interviews about older DHH adults’ usage of automatic speech recognition (ASR) applications, and this effort was led by then-trainee Matthew Seita (now at Gallaudet University). Specifically, these adults were shown various potential ASR interfaces on a variety of devices (i.e., phones and computers) along with different social contexts (e.g., restaurant).

This year, the trainees (PhD student Marzieh Amiri Shahbazi and MS students Liya Thomas, Olivia Wang, and Mohammad Raziuddin Chowdhury) have performed thematic analyses on the previously collected data. This required trainees to not only understand the current literature related to ASR interface design, but also the standard HCI practices surrounding qualitative data analysis. A workshop paper is planned to be submitted on these results.

Looking towards the next year, we plan to diversify our research projects and provide synergistic research opportunities with the trainees. The planned efforts include creating and conducting a follow-up human subjects experiment, extending the ASR study. Additionally, we aim to investigate accessibility in the context of embodied artificial intelligence (i.e., human-robot interaction). We anticipate both these two efforts leading to findings disseminated in research publications.

Spring 2024 MSI Visits

Photo: Mahsa Mozaffari visited Wellesley College.

The AWARE-AI program sent six trainees to visit six institutions in the spring. Liya Thomas visited Tuskegee University, Mahsa Mozaffari visited Wellesley College, Will Gebhardt visited University of Texas at San Antonio, Marzieh Amiri Shahbazi visited California State University Northridge, Michael Peechatt visited North Carolina A&T State University, and Rodney Sanchez visited City College of New York at CUNY. During the visits, trainees met with faculty and administration, gave presentation talks, and had opportunities to interact with students and share about their work in AI and their experiences as graduate students.

We were fortunate to coordinate these visits alongside each host institution and match students with hosting institutions that aligned with each trainee’s interests and experiences. AWARE-AI wishes to extend gratitude to Dr. Vijay Rangari (Tuskegee), Dr. Takis Metaxas (Wellesley), Dr. Panos Markopoulos and Dr. Dhireesha Kudithipudi (UTSA), Dr. Li Liu (CSUN), Dr. Olusola Odeyomi (NC A&T), and Dr. Yingli Tian (CCNY) for graciously hosting AWARE-AI trainees at their institutions.

Will Gebhardt speaking with visitors about his poster

Photo: Will Gebhardt presented a poster at UT San Antonio.

Rodney Sanchez with CCNY students and faculty

Photo: Rodney Sanchez visited CCNY.

Spotlight on Select Spring 2024 Events

Photo: AWARE-AI trainees presented their results at the Spring 2024 hackathon.

AWARE-AI’s 2023-2024 Trainee Council concluded their activities in May. Kudos to Saurav Singh, Liya Thomas, Michael Peechatt, and Gabriel Park!
AWARE-AI trainees Michael Peechatt and Gabriel Park hosted an informational table at NTID’s weekly popcorn social with AWARE-AI Project Coordinator, Shannon Regelsberger.
AWARE-AI trainees and faculty presented an exhibit at the 2024 Imagine RIT Creativity and Innovation Festival.
AWARE-AI trainees participated in a 24-hour hackathon in Spring 2024 alongside several Master’s in AI graduate students. Teams were tasked with performing exploratory data analysis and developing unique physiological-state estimation machine-learning models. The dataset consisted of electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration-rate, and electromyography (EMG) data, which were labeled across five dimensions (physical fatigue, mental fatigue, boredom, cognitive load, and comfort). Once the teams completed the 24-hour coding time frame, they presented their results to the entire participating group. The teams were judged from a model performance and presentation quality perspective.

Photo: Gabriel Park, Shannon Regelsberger, and Michael Peechatt at the AWARE-AI program’s information table at NTID.

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