College of IST announces winners of first 'AI in Research Symposium'

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) recently announced the winners of its inaugural "AI in Research Symposium." The event, held Oct. 2 at the Graduate by Hilton State College, invited students to demonstrate ways that artificial intelligence (AI) might be used in the research process.

The symposium, hosted by IST's Office of the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs, presented an opportunity for students and faculty to explore how AI is reshaping research by improving efficiencies and expanding what’s possible and to discuss how standards and practices might differ across academic communities.

“In IST, we have a variety of perspectives,” said Carleen Maitland, professor and associate dean for research and graduate affairs in the College of IST. “Some faculty are opposed to AI use in research. Others are comfortable with it but want to see its use staggered; for example, with doctoral students using it sparingly during their first two years and gradually increasing use in later years. Still others are OK with students using AI throughout their graduate programs. So, at this point, it’s really important that faculty and students understand one another’s perspectives.”

The students presented live demonstrations, posters or interactive displays that explored the benefits and risks of involving AI in research. Faculty and student attendees voted on their favorite projects and selected three winners:

First Place ($1,000)

Stephanie TianYa Jen, a first-year graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented “Pixel Lab: A Local-First AI Research OS for Student-PI Research Collaboration.” Pixel Lab is a local-first research system that transforms long-term research progress into an interactive, gamified virtual lab while keeping sensitive information local by default. Jen’s adviser is James Wang, IST distinguished professor and Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence faculty affiliate.

Second Place ($500)

Rishvanth Amsaraj, a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor of science degree in data sciences in the College of Engineering, presented “AI for Productive Struggle: Teaching Students How to Think.” Built around the principle “Think First, Ask AI Second,” the Socratic AI tutoring platform uses questions, hints and reflection prompts rather than immediate answers to help students reason through problems while giving instructors insight into their progress. Amsaraj is an undergraduate researcher in the ReSENSE Lab under the direction of Dhananjay Singh, IST teaching professor and Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence faculty affiliate.

Third Place ($250)

Hillmer Chona, a third-year graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented “We Need Greater Transparency to Maintain Research Pipeline Reliability Despite GenAI.” Chona examined how generative AI affects research authoring, peer review and researcher evaluation, arguing for greater transparency to preserve research reliability while keeping human researchers at the center of science. Chona is advised by Jonathan Dodge, assistant professor in IST’s Department of Informatics and Intelligent Systems.

The event also featured a discussion and Q&A panel of faculty and department heads who discussed the evolving role of AI in research and scholarship, emerging opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical and responsible AI development and deployment and preparing students and researchers for an AI-enabled future.

Chair and moderator

• Sarah Rajtmajer, associate professor, IST; research associate, Rock Ethics Institute; faculty affiliate, Center for Social Data Analytics; faculty affiliate, Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence

Panelists

• Guoray Cai, Dewey Walker Professor in IST and head of the Department of Human-Centered Computing and Social Informatics
• Sharon Huang, David Reese Professor of IST; head, IST Department of Informatics and Intelligent Systems; associate faculty, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences; faculty affiliate, Huck Institute of the Life Sciences
• Vasant Honavar, professor; vice provost for AI at Penn State; director, Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Scientific Applications; faculty affiliate at Institute for Computational Sciences, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, and Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence
• Courtney Karmelita, chief of staff, Office for Research Protections; executive director, Ethical Research and Outreach; research integrity officer (via Zoom)
• Dongwon Lee, Frymoyer Chair in IST; professor and head, IST Department of Privacy and Cybersecurity Informatics; faculty affiliate, Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence

Other student presenters included:

• Ali Al Lawati, a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented “Lab OS: How I Run a Research Lab of AI Agents.” Advisers: Dongwon Lee and Suhang Wang, IST associate professor, Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence faculty affiliate and Institute for Computational and Data Sciences faculty affiliate.
• Yaoyu He, a second-year graduate student pursuing a master’s degree informatics in the College of IST, presented “24/7 Research, Without 24/7 Researchers: Using AI to Accelerate Prototyping, Automate Error Recovery, and Oversee Training.” He’s adviser is Syed Billah, IST associate professor and Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence faculty affiliate.
• Ruibo Lu, a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented “Agent-Assisted Static Analysis for Use-After-Put Detection in the Linux Kernel.” Lu’s adviser is Hong Hu, associate professor in IST’s Department of Privacy and Cybersecurity Informatics.
• Sourav Panda, a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented three projects: “A Longitudinal Examination of CHI Papers’ Data Collection Methodologies,” “The Control-Adaptability Trade-off in Automated Systematic Literature Reviews: From Scripted Pipelines to Agentic Workflows” and “The Race Between Agentic AI Capabilities and Data Quality Control in Online Surveys.” Panda’s adviser is Jonathan Dodge.
• Shuhua Yang, a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented “Daily Interaction with AI Coding Tool: How to Ask AI to Do the Job Properly.” Yang’s advisers are Dongwon Lee and Suhang Wang.
• Windy Zhang, a graduate student pursuing a doctoral degree in informatics in the College of IST, presented “From Research to Slides: An AI Workflow for Academic Presentations.” Zhang’s adviser is Vasant Honavar.

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