Artificial Intelligence

Powered by AI

Colleen Rich — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 14:50:37 +0000

�� researchers are using all areas of artificial intelligence (AI) to create new and better solutions. They are using machine learning to predict social isolation among caregivers, detect bruising across a variety of skin tones, and improve the diagnosis and treatment of vision problems. Researchers are using natural language processing to develop a technology that can automatically translate lesser-known languages. They are working with augmented reality to improve workplace safety. And that’s just a glimpse of the work, powered by AI, being conducted by George Mason faculty and students.

As the largest and most diverse university in Virginia, George Mason is leading the future of inclusive AI and developing responsible models for AI research, education, workforce development, and community engagement within a modern university.

George Mason’s Approach

Led by Amarda Shehu, the university’s inaugural vice president and chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO), and an AI Visioning Task Force, George Mason is working with partners throughout the region and across the state to build a nexus of collaboration and resources called AI2Nexus.

As a model for universities, AI2Nexus is based on four key principles: integrate AI to transform education, research, and operations; inspire AI to advance higher education and learning for the future work force; innovate AI to lead in responsible AI enabled discovery and advancements across disciplines; and impact AI to drive partnerships and community engagement for societal adoption and change.

“I knew when I started my research in this field over 20 years ago that AI would unleash enormous speed and power in innovation, which is at the heart of what drives George Mason. Power lies in our ability to harness this technology in sustainable and democratic deployment that improves society and the human condition.”

Amarda Shehu, CAIO

INTEGRATE AI

Advancing Operations with PatriotAI

George Mason is reimagining operational excellence, equipping all students, faculty, and staff with access to cutting-edge generative AI models through George Mason’s enterprise AI platform, PatriotAI, which is the first major outcome of our strategic partnership with Microsoft and Cloudforce.

PatriotAI is a suite of six specialized AI tools, called agents, offering secure, university-managed access to large language models (LLMs) that can aid academic work and student life. Codeveloped with members of the campus community, these AI tools are designed to enhance learning, instruction, research, and administration across campus.

In addition, the university has established guiding principles for the use of AI. These resources provide framework and guidance for the responsible and ethical use of AI across the academic community to help faculty, staff, and students. These guidelines are expected to evolve as the tools, student expectations, and pedagogical approaches change.

“When we talk about ‘integrate' in the context of AI, we’re not just referring to adopting new tools—we’re talking about rethinking how we work, teach, and serve,” says Charmaine Madison, George Mason’s chief information officer. “AI is no longer optional; it’s a transformative force that’s already reshaping higher education. The challenge before us isn’t whether to use AI, but how to integrate it thoughtfully and effectively into the fabric of our university.”

Patriot Chat — A general-purpose conversational assistant
DocuMate — A large-scale document analysis assistant
PatriotPal — A virtual assistant for students, providing George Mason-specific information about administrative procedures, academic policies, and services
NourishNet — A resource connector for student food insecurity
CourseMate — A student learning assistant that helps students understand lecture content, analyze research articles, inter-pret textbook materials, and prepare for exams
SyllaBright — A course design assistant that helps faculty develop and refine educational materials

“Artificial intelligence is transforming industries, reshaping societal norms, and challenging long-standing ethical frameworks. This course [AI: Ethics, Policy, and Society] provides critical insights into the ethical, societal, and policy implications of AI at a time when these technologies are increasingly deployed in areas like health care, criminal justice, and national defense.”

Jesse Kirkpatrick, co-director of the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center

INSPIRE AI

Designing Curriculum for the Future Workforce

As a leader in preparing career-ready talent for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region, George Mason is developing courses, curricula, and degree programs to better prepare our students for a rapidly changing world.

AI: Ethics, Policy, and Society, an interdisciplinary graduate course, debuted in spring 2025. Designed to prepare students to tackle the ethical, societal, and governance challenges presented by AI, this course draws expertise from the Schar School of Policy and Government, the College of Engineering and Computing, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
In fall 2025, a new undergraduate course open to all students, AI4All: Understanding and Building Artificial Intelligence, taught by Shehu, will be offered for the first time.
In addition to a master’s degree in computer science and machine learning, a 14-credit ethics and AI minor for undergraduates of all majors, and a responsible AI graduate certificate, George Mason is Virginia’s first public university to offer a stand-alone master’s degree in AI. The first students in this program begin this fall.
A new PhD in Robotics, recently approved by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, is the first of its kind in the commonwealth and is already drawing interest from students.

George Mason also partners with tech leaders like Google and Amazon Web Services to offer certifications in data analytics, cybersecurity, and cloud computing, enhancing student expertise.

Using AI in the Classroom

At University Career Services, career counselors are already seeing the impact of AI on graduates’ job searches. Many companies are expecting grads to arrive well versed and prepared to handle AI in the workplace. Faculty members are preparing these students by introducing AI in the classroom.

In the Costello College of Business, students are introduced to AI and LLMs in ACCT 661 Advanced Accounting Analytics I, and in later courses, the students are asked to think creatively about how they can use AI to change the future of accounting and auditing, says Professor Steven Maex.
The capstone project in Maex’s ACCT 771 Audit Analytics class asks students to develop a new tool or use case for AI or analytics that can improve the efficiency or effectiveness of traditional ways of working.
In her MGMT 421 Advanced Human Resource Management course, Cindy Parker, BS Psychology ’92, MA ’94, PhD ’98, has students use generative AI to help them develop a structured interview guide, after they do some initial work on their own. “I teach them some prompt engineering best practices, and they are asked to critique the output generated by AI,” says Parker.
Professor Tyler Cowen, BS Economics ’83, is using his book GOAT: Who Is the Greatest Economist of All Time and Why Does It Matter? as the primary text for his ECON 895 History of Economic Thought course. Published in GPT 4 and Claude 2, the book comes with a chat bot, allowing students to ask questions and receive responses.

INNOVATE AI

Building a Responsible Ecosystem

George Mason researchers are focused on tackling the world’s most urgent challenges with a vision for societal change. The university’s ecosystem of cutting-edge research, incubators and other resources for entrepreneurs, a robust tech transfer program, and industry partners helps foster interdisciplinary collaborations and substantiate a cycle between foundational and user-inspired AI research within ethical frameworks.

The university hosts workshops, conferences, and public forums to shape the discourse on AI ethics and governance while forging deep and meaningful partnerships with industry, government, and community organizations to develop impactful AI technologies for a richly diverse global society.

Schar School of Policy and Government researcher J. P. Singh has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Research Initiative to study the economic and cultural determinants for global AI infrastructures and their implications for international security.
College of Public Health researchers Farrokh Alemi and Kevin Lybarger have received George Mason’s first Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute award for developing an AI system, using LLMs, that helps patients find the right depression medication.
College of Engineering and Computing researchers Abolfazl Safikhani and Tianshu Feng are using machine learning to develop a tool to improve transparency and assist government decision-makers and urban planners with land use and development.
Costello College of Business researchers Yi Cao and Long Chen are exploring how individual investors can use LLMs, like Gemini, to glean market insights from publicly available data about companies.

IMPACT AI

Driving Community Engagement and Adoption

The university’s AI-in-Government Council is a partnership between academia, public-sector tech providers, and government. It is a trusted resource for advancing AI approaches, governance frameworks, and guardrails to guide the development and deployment of responsible AI in government.

Leading experts and faculty also participate in statewide efforts. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin appointed Jamil Jaffer, the founder and executive director of the National Security Institute (NSI) at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School, to his AI Task Force, which is working with legislators to regulate rapidly advancing AI technology. Jaffer and NSI Fellow Zach Graves are two of the 10 appointees to the task force.

Shehu and Padhu Seshaiyer, a professor of mathematical sciences in the College of Science, were appointed by Youngkin to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia’s EO30 task force. EO30 refers to Youngkin’s Executive Order 30, which calls for the “Implementation of Standards for the Safe Use of AI Across the Commonwealth.”

Even the summer camps are getting involved. The Accelerated College and Employability Skills (ACCESS) Academy lab school brought high school students to Fuse at Mason Square for an AI Summer Camp where students explored the basics of machine learning through hands-on projects. Students in the monthlong AI4Defense summer program not only gained technical and communication skills but also engaged in customer discovery—working directly with mission partners to define problems and tailor AI solutions accordingly.

In May, George Mason hosted the AI in Education Summit with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, bringing K-12 educators together with thought leaders from academia and industry. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

This information sciences and technology instructor is a Patriot through and through

Shayla Brown — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 18:42:15 +0000

This information sciences and technology instructor is a Patriot through and through  Shayla Brown Mon, 09/15/2025 - 14:42

When Hussna Azamy arrived on ��’s Fairfax �� for her first advising session as a Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) transfer student, she had no idea it would be the beginning of a lifelong calling.

“Dr. [Irene] Bruno shaped me into the professor I am today,” said Azamy, recalling that 2013 meeting with the advisor who became her mentor. “Her guidance, her kindness, her belief in students—it inspired me to rise to my best self.” 

Hussna Azamy. Photo provided.

Azamy’s path to teaching wasn’t linear. After earning her BS in cyber security engineering in 2015, she ventured into the corporate world, working with Accenture, Fannie Mae, Fortune 500 companies, and Amazon Web Services. She led teams and projects, built secure systems, and navigated high-stakes environments—experiences she now brings into the classroom in the College of Engineering and Computing. 

“I always tell my students, the theories we learn are powerful—but seeing them in action is what makes them real,” she said. “When I share stories from my time in industry, I see their eyes light up. It connects the dots.” 

Even as she climbed the tech ladder, she was simultaneously pursuing her master’s through Mason’s Bachelor’s to Accelerated Master’s Program. That led her back to Bruno—this time as a graduate teaching assistant in the Information Systems and Technology (IST) Department. 

“I was thriving professionally, but mentally drained,” Azamy admitted. “Then I’d walk into class, see my students’ energy, and suddenly I felt alive.” 

By 2017, she had earned her master’s in applied information technology—and clarity. Teaching wasn’t just a job. It was her purpose.   

Just as she realized this, a full-time faculty position opened in the IST department. It felt like fate. 

“I was scared to make such a big leap,” she said. “But since becoming full-time faculty, I’ve never looked back. The students, the colleagues, the energy—it feels like home.” 

Azamy brings that energy into her classroom with a twist: gamification. 

“I turn lessons into team competitions,” she said. “It sparks excitement and keeps students engaged.”   

She uses buzzers for trivia contests inspired by “Jeopardy!” and tracks team points across sessions. Winners earn fun prizes like assignment extensions or chocolates.  

“The students love it,” she said with a smile.

Azamy, who currently teaches the courses IT 372 Applied Generative AI and IT 429 Security Accreditation of Information Systems, recently expanded the games to include artificial intelligence (AI) tools, helping students explore how technology can boost their learning.   

While Azamy credits many mentors, her bond with Irene Bruno remains special. Bruno, now retired, was her undergraduate advisor and a guiding force at George Mason. 

“She’s brilliant and a phenomenal problem solver,” Bruno said. “Hussna stood out in class—sharp, detail-oriented, and dependable.”   

Azamy even helped edit Bruno’s Discrete Mathematics textbook for IT 102, catching everything from math errors to grammar slips. 

“She was my go-to,” said Bruno, who hired Azamy as an adjunct in 2017. They worked side by side until Bruno’s retirement in 2022. 

“I’d sit in on her classes often,” Bruno said. “She had a gift, explaining complex ideas in ways students could grasp. That’s what makes her exceptional not just in cybersecurity, but in teaching.” 

Now, as a full-time faculty member, Azamy continues to bridge real-world experience with academic insight, creating a classroom environment where students feel seen, challenged, and inspired. Her journey from student to industry professional to educator is a powerful reminder that believing in others can spark transformation. And for every student she mentors, Azamy hopes to be the kind of guide who helps them discover not just what they can learn—but who they can become. 

In This Story

Irene Bruno

Learn more about AI at George Mason

Topics

faculty profile

College of Engineering and Computing

Artificial Intelligence

Bachelor’s/Acclerated Master’s Program

Alumni

Dialing up new 9-1-1 training with AI

Nathan Kahl — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 18:34:13 +0000

Dialing up new 9-1-1 training with AI Nathan Kahl Tue, 09/09/2025 - 14:34

In This Story

Hemant Purohit

Karina Korostelina

��’s Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC) is working with the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications (DPSC) to implement artificial intelligence (AI) and possibly forever change the way 9-1-1 operators are trained.

Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), C-RASC started working with Fairfax’s DPSC in 2024. The goal was to implement AI to improve the resiliency of the county’s emergency response system, using AI to assist 9-1-1 operators by answering calls.

But Kathy Laskey, professor emerita of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, said, “There are all kinds of legal and other sticky issues with putting AI on the phone with people calling 9-1-1.” The researchers pivoted quickly. “The DPSC told us that where they could use help is training, because operators need a lot of practice in taking calls before they actually respond to real callers.”

Hemant Purohit, Monika Bochert (NIST), and Lin Wells impressed the Public Safety Innovation Summit Conference attendees with the new technology. Photo provided.

Training is very labor-intensive in a 9-1-1 call center, and typically an instructor will play the role of a 9-1-1 caller and improvise a call scenario from a large scenario booklet, with the trainee responding and getting feedback on the responses they give.

The Conversational AI-assisted Scenario Training System developed by the George Mason faculty together with industry partners and guided by DPSC is very sophisticated in generating realistic scenario calls and is customizable.

“Trained in part on the scenario booklet being fed into this AI system, the scenario narration by the voicebot is done in such a way that it mimics a wide range of typical caller behavior,” said Hemant Purohit, associate professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology and director of the Humanitarian Informatics Lab.

Lin Wells, executive advisor to C-RASC, added, “Each caller may have a different situation, and the training staff helped us identify those variables in terms of the components they want trainees to practice.”

The project team is enhancing the system in several ways. One is by incorporating various difficulty levels so the system can be used both for new employees and as a refresher for existing staff. Another is to add realism, such as the sounds of passing cars in a scenario involving a traffic accident. Another enhancement is to include diverse speech patterns, such as accents, different tones of voice, language, and other real-world challenges the operators face.

Purohit said the team recently attended the NIST Public Safety Innovation Summit Conference (5 x 5) in Seattle and got a very positive response to the technology. A 9-1-1 communications and training coordinator from another state, who had 27 years of work in public safety and received this year’s award at the conference, said the technology was the best she had seen.

Laskey added that Fairfax County also has been very supportive of the work. “I taught at George Mason for 32 years, and I've worked on a lot of research projects. I've never before in my life demonstrated a software project to a client where the recipients applauded when we were done.”

Perhaps the most important endorsement of all came from the 9-1-1 training instructors, who were impressed with how well the AI callers mimicked real-life situations and how this could save them hours of training.

The other project team members include Paul Houser, professor and executive director of C-RASC, and Karina Korostelina, professor and director of the Sustainable Peace Lab at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Korostelina is leading the project’s community engagement study, which has involved interviews with Fairfax County citizens. Her findings showed the barriers to effective 9-1-1 services include language, delays with interpreter access, limited public understanding of emergency-vs.-non-emergency use, rigid questioning protocols, human error, and the need for more experience in handling mental health crises.

“The increase in adaptive capacity of new technologies requires deep considerations for micro-dynamics of identity and power in communities,” said Korostelina. “To build this capacity as a part of community resilience, the project will codesign the systemic approach for community engagement, including public education campaigns using schools, libraries, media, and community workshops to teach the difference between emergency and non-emergency calls and how to conduct emergency calls more efficiently.”

The project team is supported by doctoral students Ramya S. Nayaka and Hamad Edhah Yaslam Aldhlea from the College of Engineering and Computing and the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution respectively, as well as industry partners OmniBot Advisors and BlueHorse Digital.

In addition to working with Fairfax County on a possible continuation of the project the group is exploring academic-industry partnerships and preparing to discuss possibilities for commercialization with the university’s Office of Technology Transfer.

Topics

AI and human factors

Emergency Management

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities

National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST

Research

Artificial Intelligence

George Mason’s Chief Information Security Officer protects the keys to the kingdom

Lauren Reuscher — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 14:42:10 +0000

George Mason’s Chief Information Security Officer protects the keys to the kingdom Lauren Reuscher Thu, 09/04/2025 - 10:42

Matthew Dalton joined �� as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) in May, bringing more than 25 years of experience as a cybersecurity leader at R1 institutions. In his new role with Information Technology Services, he will provide vision and strategy for information security at Virginia’s largest public research university.

We sat down with Dalton to learn more about today’s cybersecurity environment and how students, faculty, and staff can make sure they’re staying “cyber smart.”

Matthew Dalton, chief information security officer, ��. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

What does information security entail, particularly in a higher education setting?

One of the main responsibilities of my role is to help set the cybersecurity strategy for the university, allowing the flexibility and freedom necessary for creative, educational, and research endeavors, while preventing the negative impacts of cybersecurity events.

Information security is about managing the risk to the community, their data, and the systems they rely on, as well as the risks that are presented to the university from everyday events, malicious actors, and nation-state threats. Depending on the kind of information that a person possesses or accesses online, the threats can be very different across the university.

You have led information security at several different institutions. What drew you to a career in higher education, and specifically to ��?

You could say that higher education is in my blood. Many of my family members have worked in education. There are family stories that my great-grandparents on one side met because they taught at the same college. In my immediate family and closer generations, many of them met at the same college and went on to careers that stressed the value of education.

For me, the brightest possible future comes through education, learning about others' experiences, and using our combined experiences to find a better path forward. I think that �� is one of the best examples of that in action.

What are the biggest changes in cybersecurity in higher education since you first entered the field?

I have seen two big changes. The first is the change from believing that individual researchers or departments at a large institution should manage information security requirements on their own. These days, it takes a coordinated effort across many different parts of the university to protect the information assets effectively.

The second change is the need to bring information security closer to the individual person, rather than just the device or network that they are using. Early on, the computers were massive, and protecting the room that they were in may have been sufficient. Today, user credentials are the keys to the kingdom, and getting access to those unlocks the data that is everywhere, thanks to the cloud.

How do you work across other departments to reduce risks to the university?

With information technology embedded in everything across the university, it is essential that the security program works across the university as well. It’s more than just helping people not to click on that suspicious email; it’s about learning what they do in their role, so that the protections we put in place can complement, rather than compete with, their activities.

How does artificial intelligence (AI) factor into your role as chief information security officer?

Just like technology in general, AI is a force multiplier. You need to consider how AI can be used by people who are meaning ill intent just as effectively as it can be used by those who are trying to protect.

It is important that AI be adopted into our strategy both from a threat-modeling perspective and how to deploy better protections for the university, so that we can respond effectively and quickly against whatever attacks come our way.

How can we better protect our personal information online? What are some important things for students, faculty, and staff to do in their daily lives?

Probably the most effective way to protect yourself online is to be aware of the hectic pace of the world we live in today. Be thoughtful in your approach, especially when it comes to emails, texts, social media messages, or any other way that some entity might interact with you.

You need to stop, take time to breathe, and don't let the message dictate how frenetic a response you give. Think about whether this is a legitimate email or message, whether it's either too good to be true, or if it is trying to make you act with urgency.

Almost every scam or phishing attempt has three things in common:

The message tries to assert an authority that it may or may not have, posing as a tax collector, police, or even something like IT support.
The message offers you something of value, like winning the lottery or an unclaimed prize—or a chance to avoid pain, such as past due taxes, and threats that your account is about to be suspended.
The message holds a sense of urgency, telling you to act now, or telling you that you are actively in danger.

If it seems strange, don’t engage. Instead, report it to Information Technology Services.

Check out these other cybersecurity resources from George Mason:

Security Best Practices—Information Technology Services

Strong passwords add security

Information Technology Services (ITS) News—IT Security

ITS news

Cybersecurity best practices

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Faculty and Staff News

Information Technology Services

Cybersecurity

Artificial Intelligence

GCI-Grand Challenge Initiative

Mason Korea hosts Young Innovators Summer Camp for local youth

Colleen Rich — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 17:00:54 +0000

Mason Korea hosts Young Innovators Summer Camp for local youth Colleen Rich Tue, 09/02/2025 - 13:00

Eighty elementary, middle, and high school students from Incheon, South Korea, spent four days exploring the technologies shaping the future at Mason Korea’s 2025 Young Innovators Summer Camp. Held on the Songdo campus from August 18–21, the program is part of Incheon’s Youth Talent Development initiative.

Young Innovators Summer Camp at Mason Korea. Photo provided

Each day began with “AI, Robotics, and Me,” a lecture by Eunmee Lee, Mason Korea’s associate professor of English for academic purposes, who introduced students to the latest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics while encouraging conversations about their ethical use. The program also featured a computer game design workshop led by James Broderick, assistant professor of computer game design, giving students a chance to develop and test their own game ideas.

“We designed this camp to give students space to explore, play, and discover new ideas,” said Lee, who led the program. “Our goal was to make learning dynamic and creative, something that sparks curiosity.”

Students also built and flew drones, conducted some climate experiments, and explored computer coding. They also took a campus tour led by Mason Korea student ambassadors and visited the National Gwacheon Science Museum.

Organized under Mason Cares, Mason Korea's social impact project, and supported by the Incheon Institute for Talent and Lifelong Education and Incheon Global ��, the camp brought together Mason Korea faculty, student mentors, experts, and volunteers to support and empower local youth.

“The camp provided a meaningful opportunity to strengthen the digital and AI skills of Incheon’s youth while advancing George Mason’s mission of building a more just, free and prosperous world," said �� Dean Joshua Park.

Topics

Mason Korea

Summer Camps

Artificial Intelligence

workforce

Students

CEHD and University Libraries are building a tool to improve navigating education research

Sarah Holland — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 19:32:40 +0000

CEHD and University Libraries are building a tool to improve navigating education research Sarah Holland Thu, 08/28/2025 - 15:32

The widening gap between research and practice represents exactly the type of grand challenge that ��'s Grand Challenge Initiative seeks to tackle through cross-disciplinary innovation.

Faculty across the College of Education and Human Development, working with University Libraries, are exploring AI-powered ways to bridge that gap—exemplifying the Initiative's dual focus on advancing 21st-century education for all and driving responsible digital innovation in service of the public good.

Seth Hunter. Photo provided.

Seth Hunter, associate professor of education leadership and policy and senior fellow of EdPolicyForward: George Mason’s Center for Education Policy, collaborated with the University Libraries to receive seed funding from EBSCO—a library database service—to develop a tool that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to help practitioners in education find and interpret evidence-based practices and research that can be implemented to improve student outcomes.

Before coming to George Mason, Hunter worked in state and local education agencies, where “research in educational studies in K-12 was available, but not being used to support important decisions at district and state levels. The disconnect between research and practice and policymaking was fascinating to me.”

This wasn't exclusive to education agencies; the same patterns appeared in local school districts as well. Beth Davis, PhD Education ’23, and postdoctoral fellow in EdPolicyForward, noted that she saw this gap in action.

“When I worked at a high school in Maryland, there were so many challenges that I knew there were better ways to do things than what we were doing, but I also didn’t feel like we had the time to figure out what those things might be,” she said.

Beth Davis. Photo provided.

As Davis pointed out, an efficient and effective search takes time, even for the most seasoned researcher. Combing through search results, sorting books from articles from reviews, tracking new keywords and phrases: It can be a challenging, and time-consuming, effort just to find the articles you need. And that doesn’t account for the time required to read and interpret the content once found.

As AI grew in its capabilities, Hunter saw an opportunity to leverage this new technology to perhaps bridge that research/practice gap.

“We’re looking at bespoke AI tools that are out there already to help practitioners find and translate research in ways that would enable school improvement for student benefit while meeting federal and state policy guidelines,” explained Hunter.

Early results show promise. In a pilot endeavor within the Education Leadership MEd program, the students asked to search for articles using AI-powered tools found the process much easier than traditional search methods, and they reported that the AI helped them understand the research through its ability to succinctly summarize the contents in more accessible language.

“It could streamline the process of making evidence-based practices and research easier to find and therefore implement,” said Davis.

Christopher Lowder. Photo provided.

As the primary provider for access to scholarly research, University Libraries is central to this project. Hunter recruited the expertise of Christopher Lowder, education subject librarian, to assist them in developing the tool.

“Having computers go through information quickly is not new,” said Lowder, “but now we’re thinking about how this new generation of AI can make the research content understandable to the average user. It’s almost like translation, or decoding.” For example: Can the AI alert the user if the study meets the standards set forth by federal and state Departments of Education?

For Hunter, bringing the public back to university libraries is a secondary benefit of the project. “I think university library systems are such a huge value-add for the public good,” said Hunter. “Libraries set universities apart from many other knowledge organizations.”

Hunter also notes that a tool like this supports fiscal responsibility. With evidence-based practices, leadership can be confident they are putting resources behind an initiative that has been empirically tested and verified. "We want to enable better decision-making so leaders can be better stewards of public resources that can improve students’ lives.”

As one of the top 20 universities for innovation in the United States and a leader in AI innovation in Virginia, George Mason is working to advance research for the campus community and beyond. Multidisciplinary teams like this are, for Hunter, a core tenet of this, and necessary to the development of bold solutions to the grand challenges of our generation.

“We have these permeable boundaries within units and across colleges,” said Hunter. “I mean, this team illustrates that: We have CEHD faculty, we have a librarian, we’ll be working with computer scientists...we are encouraged to engage in transdisciplinary research and that feeds innovation.”

Lowder agreed. “George Mason encourages us to try things in new and different ways and to include different voices within the conversation, and our leadership genuinely believes that our work can do good not just for the university but also for the wider community. I believe it’s a public good for information to be findable, understandable, and accessible.”

Learn more about the College of Education and Human Development

Topics

Research

College of Education and Human Development

University Libraries

Artificial Intelligence

GCI-Grand Challenge Initiative

EdPolicyForward

Harnessing VR to prevent substance use relapse

Taylor Thomas — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:39:05 +0000

Harnessing VR to prevent substance use relapse Taylor Thomas Sat, 08/16/2025 - 13:39

In This Story

Holly Matto, PhD, LCSW-C

Substance use recovery is a lifelong process, but environmental triggers, such as alcohol at social gatherings or pain medication advertisements, can put individuals in recovery at risk of relapse.

Research by �� social work professor Holly Matto, with colleagues from the College of Science and College of Engineering and Computing, and their Brightline Interactive Industry partner, examined how positive stimuli, what they call "recovery cues," can counteract drug cravings and lower relapse risk.

The team equipped individuals in recovery with virtual reality (VR) technology to see how relaxing sensory experiences can regulate their emotional and physical reactions to triggers to ultimately improve behavioral decision-making.

Participants were offered customized recovery cues embedded in a variety of VR scenarios aimed at reducing their bodies’ reactions to drug triggers. Comfort and familiarity were key to recovery cues, Matto emphasized.

“If we can identify an individual’s own set of personally meaningful recovery cues, we have the unique opportunity to present these cues to the individual as a real-time personalized intervention at the time of drug cue exposure and at the onset of craving escalation to help the person stabilize back to a regulated state,” she said.

Recovery cues, such as visualizing a beloved pet or audio messaging with inspirational affirmations, reorient the individual onto the recovery path when faced with something that potentially ignites a drug craving. The most important cue for participants seemed to be the “12-step chip and pamphlet” when presented in the VR scenarios. The “12-steps” refer to the milestones that those overcoming addiction aspire to achieve in their recovery journey. This cue was highly effective, likely due to the recognizability it may elicit in the recovery community.

Developing a “digital best self”

Matto and colleagues are now working on two new research projects, building upon the findings of this study. The team is working on simulations that train individuals to implement their recovery cues so they can control their own reactions to drug cues. The goal is to help them develop a “digital best self” that represents the person they aspire to be in recovery.

“Recovery is a process which requires learning opportunities that create change in the ways an individual engages their thoughts and feelings to motivate behavior in environments that present challenges to their recovery. VR offers an immersive space where that learning can occur and where relapse triggers can be presented in ways that require implementation of learned recovery strategies,” said Matto.

Examining the Power of Recovery Cues to Enhance Real-Time Regulation and Manage Substance Craving was published in Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services in June 2025.

The George Mason research team includes Professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer from the College of Science and Associate Professor Nathalia Peixoto from the Volgenau School of Engineering, and Bioengineering PhD candidate Bryce Dunn.

Topics

Substance Use

Recovery

Behavioral Health Recovery

virtual reality

Social Work Research

Social Work Faculty

Artificial Intelligence

Research

AI’s blind spots, one PhD student’s clear vision

Ryley McGinnis — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 18:36:42 +0000

AI’s blind spots, one PhD student’s clear vision Ryley McGinnis Mon, 08/11/2025 - 14:36

When artificial intelligence makes a mistake, the consequences can be annoying—or they can be life-altering. For one �� computer science PhD student, the stakes are clear: biased algorithms in health care aren’t just a technical flaw, they’re a human risk. And with internship experience teaching him crucial skills beyond the classroom, Fardin Ahsan Sakib is ready to make a difference in health care.

Sakib’s research in natural language processing (NLP) addresses concerns that many may have when working with emerging large language models (LLMs), but when it is applied to health decisions, there could be deeper negative risks. Tools like ChatGPT pull from vast amounts of information, but they have sometimes been known to “hallucinate,” or make up information.

“Sometimes these systems are taking a shortcut to get you an answer,” said Sakib. “But regardless of where it comes from, it can provide you incorrect information.” And in the health care space, these LLMs could aid doctors, but not when they could be driving improper care.

In electronic health records (EHRs), patients’ diagnoses, medical history, and demographic data are stored and organized. This information includes social determinants of health, like employment status, family situations, or housing conditions, hidden in records.

Fardin Ahsan Sakib is seeking to bring accurate and reliable large language models' capabilities to healthcare.

“These factors can affect up to 80% of health outcomes,” Sakib said. “So it's very important that we can extract them correctly from clinical notes and that the model is not introducing any bias.”

Sakib poses a scenario: A doctor is using an NLP tool to quickly assess a new patient’s health. The LLM is pulling from the patient’s records, and the physician asks the system, “Is this patient a smoker?” The system quickly sifts through the data, and says that yes, this patient is a smoker. The physician then proceeds to make care recommendations based on this information. Maybe they order a lung cancer screening, or they speak with the patient about smoking cessation resources.

But what if that answer was incorrect? The LLM decided to take a shortcut, because, based off the information it has, it discovered that most people with similar demographic data to the patient are indeed smokers, but this one isn’t.

“There are two things at play: bias and hallucination,” said Sakib. “First, algorithms can only use the information they have, and if that information is missing an entire racial or ethnic group, it can be biased. Second, these models can use this biased information to take shortcuts, leading to them delivering false information.”

Sakib isn't simply identifying these problems; he's developing solutions. His recent research on detecting and mitigating shortcut learning in health record processing was accepted for presentation at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2025), one of the premier NLP conferences.

That desire to build reliable and trustworthy NLP tools has driven Sakib’s academic work and his professional pursuits.

At Brillient Corporation, where he interned last summer, Sakib worked on creating a retrieval augmented generation system that connected an LLM to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) knowledge base to make accessing and retrieving information faster and grounded in facts. He and his colleagues submitted a patent for this effort.

This summer, he's deep into another high-impact internship at Amazon. “Amazon wants to automate support so that when you ask for help, a large language model can try to solve the problem before handing it off to a human,” he said.

Despite the different settings, he sees clear continuity between his internships and academic work. “The industry experience helps me in my research, and my research experience helps in industry. It goes both ways,” he said. “In academia, collaboration is usually focused within a lab or research group. In industry, I’ve worked with engineers, product managers, and domain experts all at once, spanning from health regulators to AWS cloud architects. That diversity of perspectives changes how you solve problems, and I’ve brought that mindset back into my research collaborations.”

It’s that dual perspective—academic precision paired with industry scale—that he plans to take with him into industry after graduation.

“George Mason has prepared me for a lot. From day one, all of the professors have helped me grow as a researcher, a person, and as a team member,” said Sakib.

Topics

Artificial Intelligence

large language models

computer science

Long Nguyen and Kimmy Duong School of Computing

Students

internships

One tiny flip that opens a backdoor in AI

Nathan Kahl — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:13:32 +0000

One tiny flip that opens a backdoor in AI Nathan Kahl Mon, 08/11/2025 - 09:13

A self-driving motor vehicle is cruising along, its numerous sensors and cameras telling it when to brake, change lanes, and make turns. The vehicle approaches a stop sign at a high rate of speed, but instead of stopping, it barrels through, causing an accident. The problem will probably never be found by investigators, but instead of reading the stop sign as a stop sign, the car had been hacked to see it instead as a speed limit sign.

According to research by ��’s Qiang Zeng, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, and PhD student Xiang Li and colleagues, it is remarkably simple for a would-be hacker to pull off such a feat.

“An attacker can selectively flip only one bit, and this changing of the bit from 0 to 1 allows an attacker to attach a patch onto any image and fool the AI system. Regardless of the original image input, that patched image will be interpreted as the attacker’s desired result,” said Zeng.

So, if the hacker wants an artificial intelligence (AI) system to see a stop sign as something else, or a cat as a dog, the effort is minimal. Consider a scene potentially pulled from a Mission: Impossible movie, where a corporate spy can pass himself off as a CEO, gaining access to sensitive information.

Zeng and colleagues presented a paper with the findings at USENIX Security 2025, one of the nation’s premier cybersecurity conferences.

AI systems have what’s called a deep neural network (DNN) as a key component. DNNs let AI handle complex data and perform many different tasks. They work by using numerical values, called weights, each typically stored in 32 bits. There are hundreds of billions of bits in a DNN, so changing only one is particularly stealthy, according to Zeng.

“Once the attacker knows the algorithm, then it can take literally only a couple minutes to make the change. And you won’t realize you’ve been attacked because the AI system will work as usual. Flipping one bit effectively sneaks a backdoor into AI, exploitable only by those who know the patch,” he said.

Prior work in this area typically added a patch tailored to the original image—for example, modifying a stop sign specifically so that it is misclassified as a 65 mph speed limit sign. This new research uses what’s called a uniform patch that works regardless of the original input; the hacker could cause the system to interpret various signs as a speed limit sign. This input-agnostic attack represents a newer and more dangerous threat.

When they began the project the researchers wanted to learn the minimum level of effort needed to launch such an attack, recognizing that flipping hundreds of bits is impractical and gets exponentially difficult. “It turned out, we only needed to flip one,” Zeng said with a laugh. The team named their attacking system, appropriately, OneFlip.

The researchers are now only looking at the implication for images, as image classifiers are among the most popular AI systems, though they suspect this hacking technique could also work for things like speech recognition. Zeng said that their success rate during testing was near 100% and stressed that all DNN systems are likely to be subject to such hacking.

This does not necessarily mean such hacking will run rampant. To launch the attack, Zeng said, there are two requirements: access to the exact weights (numerical values that the model learns during training of the AI system) and the ability to execute code on the machine hosting the model. For example, in cloud environments, attackers might exploit shared infrastructure where multiple tenants’ programs run on the same physical hardware.

Learn about AI at George Mason

Topics

Cyber Security

Cyber Security Research

computer science

Autonomous Cars

Artificial Intelligence

Research

ACCESS Academy’s inaugural AI Summer Camp builds critical technology skills—and miniature robots

Sarah Holland — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 13:38:25 +0000

ACCESS Academy’s inaugural AI Summer Camp builds critical technology skills—and miniature robots Sarah Holland Wed, 08/06/2025 - 09:38

In the kitchenette on the third floor of Fuse at Mason Square, 43 students huddle around laptops and inspect the codes on display in their Microsoft MakeCode programs. By their sides are little micro:bit three-wheeled robots. One sings a little 8-bit tune. Another flashes a pattern of colored lights. Another chirps like a bird, as the students at the table share a perplexed look.

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

These high school students have spent the past week working on their robots, from assembly to coding, to make them do basic tasks like follow a provided track. Now, they’re each trying to do something new: make it go faster, sing a song, drive in reverse, or flash its lights like a turn signal. With every spin-out, slow-motion crash, or odd sound, the students return to their laptops to reprogram the bot and try again. If one student is struggling, they turn to their peers. Together, they’re making the robots work.

This is the inaugural ACCESS Academy Artificial Intelligence Summer Camp. Open to all 9th—12th graders across Virginia, the camp runs three one-week sessions at the ACCESS Academy headquarters in Fuse at Mason Square. Through hands-on exploration of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, students can imagine and begin preparing for technology-sector careers. Only in its first year, the camp already has 130 total participants over the course of three sessions.

"The goal of ACCESS Academy is to create a more inclusive pathway to college and high-demand careers for students who may not have previously seen those opportunities as within reach,” said Dean Ingrid Guerra-López of ��’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD).

“We continue to hear from industries that we are not preparing our high school graduates to be employable,” said Roberto Pamas, professor of education leadership and director of the ACCESS Academy. Prior to his transition to teaching higher education, Pamas served 30 years in Fairfax County Public Schools as both an educator and an administrator. “They want both technology skills and soft skills. How to collaborate, how to communicate: we’re building those skills in these programs. And CEHD is in the business of teaching, learning, and leading.”

AI was a natural choice for the camp’s curriculum. Working with faculty from the College of Engineering and Computing, the CEHD ACCESS Academy team developed a five-day program to build foundational skills to set students up for success.

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

The first four days of the camp focus on conceptual understanding and real-world applications of those ideas. On Friday, guest speakers from local education innovation technology company Kovexa engaged with students as part of a tinkering lab.

“AI represents a cutting-edge field and a dynamic problem space where students can practice essential skills such as critical thinking, ethical reasoning, collaboration, and problem-solving,” said Guerra-López. “It’s not just about coding, but about asking better questions, evaluating outputs, and imaging new possibilities.”

The students agree.

Mariia Tkach (center) tests her robot on the track. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

“I really like the atmosphere of people coming together and doing the things that they love,” said Mariia Tkach, a rising sophomore at Marshall High School. Her father works in cybersecurity, and she hopes to follow in his footsteps. “We had an AI training, and it was very challenging. The process of figuring it out and competing with one another was fun.”

Arkash Reith, who is entering his sophomore year at Evergreen Christian School, said, “This camp gave me experience in what AI can help you do as well as what it can’t help you do. Like, with coding, it can help with basic stuff, but nothing too hard.”

After each day, students write down one word to describe their experience. From this first week, the white board is filled with words like “fun,” “inspiring,” and “fascinating.”

Guerra-López envisions the bootcamp not only as a hands-on learning experience for students, but as a launchpad for expanding access to AI education across the region.

“The tinkering lab model in particular is a powerful way to reduce anxiety around emerging technologies, increase skill and self-efficacy for both students and educators, and foster a stronger sense of community around innovation,” she said.

Plans are underway to explore how this model can scale—both to offer more advanced learning tracks for students and to engage educators in professional development that supports responsible, inclusive digital innovation.

“George Mason is a keeper of knowledge for Northern Virginia,” Pamas said. “And I believe it is our moral imperative to share that knowledge, particularly with students who otherwise might not have access to higher education.”

Discover the ACCESS Academy

Topics

�� News

Summer Camps

ACCESS Academy

Artificial Intelligence

College of Education and Human Development

College of Engineering and Computing

Fuse at Mason Square

Mason Square

Artificial Intelligence

Powered by AI

George Mason’s Approach

INTEGRATE AI

Advancing Operations with PatriotAI

INSPIRE AI

Designing Curriculum for the Future Workforce

Using AI in the Classroom

INNOVATE AI

Building a Responsible Ecosystem

IMPACT AI

Driving Community Engagement and Adoption

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