Team of statistics professors awarded seed funding from Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence
The Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CSRAI) has announced the results of its most recent seed-funding competition. The center awarded more than $159,000 to seven interdisciplinary research projects representing eight colleges and campuses. One of these projects include Matthew Beckman, associate research professor of statistics, and Dennis Pearl, research professor of statistics.
Each proposal was evaluated by peers for its connection to the center’s mission, intellectual merit and potential for securing external funding. The awards will support the formation of interdisciplinary research teams and early-stage projects that demonstrate strong potential to obtain external funding. Projects are expected to start spring 2025 and last one to two years.
“We had a record number of submissions this year,” said S. Shyam Sundar, CSRAI director and James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications. “Roughly half the applications had matching funds, showing support from the home units of the principal investigators. Reflecting this, about half the awarded proposals came with over $62,000 of matching funds, thus extending the potential of these seed grants to achieve their objectives and attract significant external funding."
For a second year in a row, generative AI, or large language models, dominated the pool of proposals. However, the seven winning proposals represent a range of topics aligning with different aspects of the center’s mission of promoting socially responsible AI.
“From using AI for tracking climate change adaptation to improving accessibility of Black digital archives, these projects span the spectrum,” said Sundar. “Likewise, the samples targeted for data collection in these projects range from residents of rural Pennsylvania to students in New Zealand."
“Comparative Analysis of AI Models and Human Judgments for Evaluation of Student Writing With and Without Non-Normative Use of English Language” — This project aims to develop natural language processing tools for formative assessments that account for linguistic diversity by prioritizing students’ understanding over non-normative language use, such as unconventional grammar or idiomatic expressions. By combining relational networks and human-in-the-loop methods, the study will analyze the impact of linguistic diversity on automated assessments, creating equitable educational tools and setting the stage for competitive funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
- Matthew Beckman, Eberly College of Science
- Rebecca Passonneau, College of Engineering
- ChanMin Kim, College of Education
- Dennis Pearl, Eberly College of Science
Additional information about each of the awarded projects are available on the center’s website.
The Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, which launched in 2020, promotes high-impact, transformative AI research and development, while encouraging the consideration of social and ethical implications in all such efforts. It supports a broad range of activities from foundational research to the application of AI to all areas of human endeavor. More information can be found on the CSRAI website.