REU Site: Artificial Intelligence for Computational Creativity

This REU site will enable undergraduate students to participate in the production of original, interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence for computational creativity. It will help individual students build critical computer science research capacity, communication and professional skills, to increase their confidence and gain a greater understanding of the research process. They will gain understanding of pathways to graduate degrees and prepare for the application process. More generally, this project will develop a multi-year pipeline of student researchers, helping to broaden participation in the fields of AI and visual computing. While students may be new to AI research, creativity applications in this field can help bridge the gap and get students excited about computer science by helping them realize the intersection of their personal creative visions and AI research. This site will bring together the well-established network of Leadership Alliance institutions with multiple AI research opportunities to produce cohorts of students highly-qualified for graduate degree programs. The research projects encompass the AI disciplines of machine learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and robotics, plus adjacent disciplines such as graphics and human-computer interaction. Areas of interest include creative generative models, evaluating generated content, and user experience design for creative AI. Students will be closely mentored by faculty and graduate students in their research labs, and supported by surrounding research groups and the resources provided by the Leadership Alliance. They will receive technical training in AI and machine learning fundamentals, including deep neural networks. They will be trained in reading, writing, and presenting their work and will put these skills into practice at research symposia and workshops. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.