UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Priya Sharma, associate professor of learning, design and technology in the Penn State College of Education, has been named the college’s faculty director for AI Literacy and Innovation. Her appointment began Aug. 1.
In the new two-year role, Sharma will work with Susan Land, interim associate dean for faculty affairs, and faculty across the college to advance artificial intelligence (AI) literacy and support thoughtful, ethical uses of artificial intelligence in teaching and research.
“Priya brings deep expertise in emerging technologies for teaching and learning, along with a practical and collaborative approach to integrating them into educational settings,” said Gwendolyn Lloyd, dean of the College of Education. “Her leadership will help our faculty navigate both the opportunities and challenges presented by AI while ensuring that ethics, human connection and educational purpose remain at the center of our work. In this role, she will also serve as a vital connector between faculty and academic leadership, helping to strengthen communication and create meaningful opportunities for dialogue about AI across the college.”
Sharma said her overarching vision is to establish a faculty-driven and faculty-supported program that moves beyond understanding how AI works to developing fluency in evaluating, selecting and applying AI tools.
“I see my role this year and next year as being a catalyst for these processes,” Sharma said. “The hope is that it builds up an energy of its own and continues to move forward as something that the faculty are collectively interested in pursuing.”
Sharma’s research and teaching focus on developing and using emerging technologies in formal and informal learning environments. Her work includes the use of learning analytics and machine learning to support student engagement and help instructors respond effectively to learners’ needs. More recently she has worked on numerous projects to integrate generative AI for supporting teaching and learning.
As she begins the position, Sharma said she is gathering information from faculty about the resources and guidance that would be most useful to them. Early responses, she said, indicate that faculty want opportunities to work directly with AI tools as they consider practical applications for their teaching and research.
Among the initiatives she is exploring are recurring faculty sessions centered on teaching and research case studies. Participants would work through a particular use of AI together and document their reasoning, creating resources that other faculty members could consult. Because appropriate AI use may vary among fields, Sharma said she envisions discipline-specific workshops that allow faculty members to evaluate tools through the lens of their own expertise.
She also is developing a College of Education website that will house vetted information and evolve as new resources become available. Other possibilities include inviting AI software vendors to demonstrate their products, followed by opportunities for faculty to critique the tools and potentially influence their design.
Ethical considerations will be central to the effort. Sharma said one priority is preserving the relationships among students, instructors and peers that are fundamental to education. Although AI can support teaching and learning, she explained, it also can disrupt those connections or contribute to distrust when academic integrity becomes an adversarial checkpoint rather than collaborative commitment.
“We need to be careful about how we’re planning our teaching and learning environments so that we can connect with students,” Sharma said. “Community and relationality are really important and foundational for education.”
Other concerns include the sources used to train AI models, systemic bias, privacy and the technology’s environmental impact. Sharma said faculty and students also need to recognize that AI is fallible, can provide inaccurate information and often produces responses that agree with the user. Strong AI literacy, she said, requires checking its output and deciding not only how to use a tool, but whether using it is appropriate or useful for a particular task.
Sharma emphasized that the initiative is not intended to require faculty members to adopt AI. She said she wants colleagues who oppose its use to have a meaningful role in college discussions, including opportunities to lead conversations about AI-free pedagogy. Their classroom practices and concerns can help others think more deliberately about course design, technology-free learning experiences and the trade-offs involved in adopting AI.
“Everybody has to pick where they land,” Sharma said. “Nobody can pick it for you. I think that choice and agency are really important because sometimes people end up using AI and not realizing what they’re giving up.”
During the first year, Sharma will consider increased faculty engagement with AI-related questions an important measure of progress, regardless of whether individual faculty members ultimately adopt the technology. Over the longer term, she said the college will likely produce case studies and ethical frameworks that can inform teaching and research across Penn State.
By the end of her term, Sharma said she hopes the college will have practical frameworks for ethical AI integration and a foundation for continued dialogue. She said the college’s expertise in how people learn across the lifespan and in different contexts positions its faculty to contribute a stronger voice to the University-wide conversation.