Seed Funding

The application deadline for spring 2025 seed funding was November 1, 2024. Please watch this page for information on awardees and future funding opportunities.

Each year, the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CSRAI) invites short proposals for seed funding from Penn State faculty, for research that advances its mission of promoting, practicing, and studying socially responsible ways of using, building, and deploying AI technology. Pilot projects should show potential for transformational research on AI that can contribute to social good, social accountability, social consciousness, social justice, equity, ethicality, fairness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, human agency, or related concepts and topics.

Find Collaborators

Interested researchers who are looking for potential collaborators are invited to submit their interest on the CSRAI website. They can also consult the center’s directory of affiliates and consider becoming an affiliate themselves.

Previously Funded Projects

“A Future where Assessing Placentas is Possible for All Births”

Alison Gernand, College of Health and Human Development
James Wang, College of Information Sciences and Technology

“Artificial Intelligence Driven Workflows for Assisting in Synthesizing Climate Change Assessment for Water Adaptation Progress”

Christine Kirchhoff, College of Engineering
Sarah Rajtmajer, College of Information Sciences and Technology

“Communities in the Loop: Developing AI for Black Digital Archives”

Jim Casey, College of the Liberal Arts
Christopher Dancy, College of Engineering
P. Gabrielle Foreman, College of the Liberal Arts

“Comparative analysis of AI models and human judgments for evaluation of student writing with and without non-normative use of English language”

Matthew Beckman, Eberly College of Science
Rebecca Passonneau, College of Engineering
ChanMin Kim, College of Education
Dennis Pearl, Eberly College of Science

“Toward Robust Annotation and Detection of Logical Fallacies in Online Misinformation”

Kenneth Huang, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Dongwon Lee, College of Information Sciences and Technology

“Planning for AI Infrastructure for Evidence-to-Impact Pipelines”

Max Crowley, College of Health and Human Development
Jonathan Wright, College of Health and Human Development
Alexander Winters, College of Health and Human Development

“Understanding Rural Healthcare Attitudes Toward AI”

Stephen Hampton, Penn State Harrisburg
Anthony Buccitelli, Penn State Harrisburg
Bernice Hausman, College of Medicine
Jennifer McCormic, College of Medicine
Vida Abedi, College of Medicine
Michael McShane, College of Medicine

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Diversity Track: Bridging the Linguistic Divide: Evaluating and Enhancing Large Language Models (LLMs) for Code-mixed Language Processing

Amulya Yadav, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Rebecca Passonneau, College of Engineering
Ritu Jayakar, College of the Liberal Arts

Engaging AI Healthcare Imaginaries through the Arts and Humanities

Bernice Hausman, College of Medicine
Michael Green, College of Medicine
Priscilla Song, College of Medicine
Jennifer McCormick, College of Medicine
Anthony Buccitelli, Penn State Harrisburg

Diversity Track: MathMentor: A System for Navigating Concepts and Strategies in Math Problem Solving and Learning with Large Language Models

Qingyun Wu, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Xiaolong Zhang, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Ellen Wenting Zou, College of Education

Mitigating Linguistic Discrimination of LLMs in Assessing English Learners

Dongwon Lee, College of Information Sciences and Technology
ChanMin Kim, College of Education

Student Perspectives on the Ethics of Generative AI

Priya Kumar, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Laura Cabrera, College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts
Kelley Cotter, College of Information Sciences and Technology

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Enhancing Situation Awareness of Adversary ML in Human-AI Collaboration for Safe Implementation of Automated Driving Systems

Yiqi Zhang, College of Engineering (Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering)
Aiping Xiong, College of Information Sciences and Technology

Optimizing Large-Scale Language Model-Based AI Integration and Human-Computer Interaction in Educational Scenarios

John M. Carroll, College of Information Sciences and Technology
ChanMin Kim, College of Education (Department of Learning and Performance Systems)
He Zhang, College of Information Sciences and Technology

Prediction Models for Airborne Infection Risk and Public Health Measures in Learning Environments Using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Donghyun Rim, College of Engineering (Department of Architectural Engineering)
Dongwon Lee, College of Information Sciences and Technology

Transforming Augmentative and Alternative Communications with AI to Empower People with Complex Communication Needs

Syed Billah, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Krista M. Wilkinson, College of Health and Human Development (Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders)
Dawn Sowers, College of Health and Human Development (Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders)

Unraveling the Impact of Human Activities on Wildlife: An AI-Powered Multimodal Data Analysis

Prasenjit Mitra, College of Information Sciences and Technology
Bing Pan, College of Health and Human Development (Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management)
Peter Newman, College of Health and Human Development (Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management)
B. Derrick Taff, College of Health and Human Development (Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management)
Shreya Ghosh, College of Information Sciences and Technology

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AI-based Ventures, Fair Data Practice, and Government Interventions