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Transforming emergency response training through AI and interactive games

Katarina Benson — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 20:42:18 +0000

Transforming emergency response training through AI and interactive games Katarina Benson Tue, 12/17/2024 - 15:42

Emergency management training doesn’t usually involve game controllers or artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, but at George Mason �鶹��, faculty and students are redefining what it means to prepare for crises. Through cutting-edge, AI-augmented games, they’re transforming complex challenges into interactive learning experiences that build skills and resilience.

The project, led by Shima Mohebbi, an assistant professor in the Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research at George Mason’s College of Engineering and Computing, along with PhD student Pavithra Sripathanallur Murali and Nischal Newar, MS Computer Science ’24, began as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative to develop simulation-based games for resilient infrastructure. Inspired by a webinar hosted by George Mason’s Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC), where the Arlington County Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management (PSCEM) shared their training needs, Mohebbi and her team expanded the project’s focus to emergency preparedness.

This shift led to the creation of two interactive AI-powered games—Go-Repair and Go-Rescue —which were developed over the course of a year to train utility managers and volunteers to make critical decisions in scenarios like infrastructure repairs and hurricane disaster evacuations.

The games simulate emergency scenarios and provide participants with tailored insights into their decision-making process. By using advanced algorithms, the games create a dynamic learning environment where strategies can be tested and adapted in real time.

“Go-Repair and Go-Rescue aim to provide volunteers and utility managers with realistic emergency scenarios in a comfortable environment, free from the stress and panic of an actual crisis,” said Mohebbi. “Through AI optimization and reinforcement learning models, players can assess whether their decisions lead to better or worse outcomes compared to the AI-generated solutions, helping them improve their skills in making science-formed decisions.”

From left, Nischal Newar, Shima Mohebbi, and Pavithra Sripathanallur Murali. Photo provided

Traditional emergency training has relied on Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) guidelines and in-person role-playing sessions known as “war gaming.” While valuable, these methods have limitations in scope, flexibility, and interactive feedback. The AI-powered games introduce a new dimension to address these gaps.

The project’s impact is already gaining recognition. Go-Repair: Resilient Infrastructure Learning Game to Evaluate Restoration Decisions was named as one of four finalists in the 2024 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Data Analytics and Information Systems (DAIS) Student Mobile App Competition. Presenting the project at the conference in Montreal, Canada, this past May provided an invaluable opportunity to gather feedback and engage with other researchers tackling similar challenges. This exchange of ideas offered fresh perspectives and inspired new approaches to improve the game’s design and effectiveness.

“The feedback and engagement we’ve received, from Arlington County to the IISE community, are vital to advancing this project,” said Mohebbi. “The collaboration fosters innovation and ensures that our work aligns with the real needs of emergency responders and volunteers.”

“The gamified approach to emergency response training provides us with a unique tool to build the skills and confidence needed to serve our residents when they need us most,” said Hannah Winant, Arlington County deputy director, Department of Public Safety Communications and Emergency Management. “We’re deeply grateful for George Mason’s proactive, innovative work, and the opportunity to collaborate on this important effort. This project reflects our belief in the power of local partnerships to drive impactful, real-world solutions for the benefit of our community.”

Looking ahead, the team is incorporating feedback to introduce more complex resource allocation tasks and expand participation to include more George Mason students and utility managers. By continuously refining the games with fresh input, the goal is to develop a versatile and effective training tool emergency response and preparedness. As the project evolves, the team aims to expand its reach, offering a smarter, more scalable solution for communities nationwide.

In This Story

Shima Mohebbi

Research at George Mason

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Interprofessional George Mason researchers awarded more than $1 million to improve outcomes for patients with depression

Jennifer Pocock — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:25:35 +0000

Interprofessional George Mason researchers awarded more than $1 million to improve outcomes for patients with depression Jennifer Pocock Tue, 12/10/2024 - 13:25

Researchers Farrokh Alemi and Kevin Lybarger receive George Mason �鶹��’s first Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) award to develop innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, including large language models, for improving antidepressant recommendations.

Farrokh Alemi and Kevin Lybarger

AI will soon receive a dose of empathy with the goal of helping to match people with depression to their best-fit medication. A team led by Farrokh Alemi, a professor in the College of Public Health (CPH), and Kevin Lybarger, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), received $1,049,998 in research funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to continue their work on developing an AI system that helps patients find the right depression medications.

With this funding support, Co-PIs Alemi and Lybarger will hone large language models (LLMs) to address known challenges in AI, including mitigating biases, reducing the potential for inaccurate information, and incorporating an empathetic tone, according to Alemi.

The new study will introduce an innovative way for AI to help patients make medication decisions. The AI system will engage patients in natural-language conversations to collect information about their medical history. The system will draw upon more than 10 million patient experiences with 15 different oral antidepressants and a National Institutes of Health All of Us database, which includes records from more than 80,000 participants with major depressive disorders, to help create a plan that is statistically likely to succeed. Alemi and Lybarger believe this will help alleviate the trial and error that can lead to negative patient outcomes.

The researchers will also introduce a first-of-its-kind patient simulator capable of mimicking various medical, linguistic, and behavioral characteristics. This simulator will be used to test and refine the AI system by simulating diverse patient scenarios, including infrequent but critical events such as suicidal ideation, to ensure the system’s recommendations are safe, culturally sensitive, and empathetic.

“This study was selected for its potential to address a high-priority methodological gap in patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research,” said PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook. “We look forward to following the study’s progress and working with George Mason to share the results.”

This is the first PCORI-funded study that George Mason has received. “Depression is a major public health problem and we are excited to see the development of new AI-based decision tools, leveraging the multidisciplinary talents of our college to help tackle it,” said CPH Associate Dean of Research Alison Cuellar.

"This innovative study promises to generate methodologies for using AI for medical decision-support and for empowering patients to make critical health decisions beyond mental health,” says Özlem Uzuner, chair of CEC’s Department of Information Sciences and Technology.

This study is one of the latest funded by PCORI to examine which medical treatments work best, where and when treatment falls flat, and how to address the gaps. These studies deliver results that guide researchers in planning future studies and provide patients, their caregivers, and clinicians with the evidence-based information needed to make better-informed health and health care decisions.

In This Story

Farrokh Alemi, PhD

Kevin Lybarger

Alison Evans Cuellar, PhD, MBA

Özlem Uzuner

Research at George Mason

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grants

Depression

antidepressants

natural language processing

Artificial Intelligence

CEC faculty research

AI on call: George Mason and Fairfax County dial up emergency response

Nathan Kahl — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 13:26:41 +0000

AI on call: George Mason and Fairfax County dial up emergency response Nathan Kahl Mon, 11/25/2024 - 08:26

When you have a dire emergency you want help from wherever you can get it. Even if it’s from an AI voice assistant.

George Mason �鶹�� received a grant of nearly $1 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for enhancing emergency response, specifically using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve training and other capabilities of the emergency communication systems in Northern Virginia. The funding was made possible through the efforts of Congressman Gerry Connolly, who sponsored the proposal.

“As we strive to improve our emergency preparedness and response capabilities, it is absolutely critical that we recognize the potential of new and emerging technologies—including AI,” said Connolly. “By utilizing this technology safely and effectively in our public safety systems, we can reduce response times, lighten the workload for 911 call centers and first responders, and better communicate with the community during emergency situations. I am so proud to have secured this important funding, and I look forward to seeing these federal dollars put to good use for the betterment of all of us who call Fairfax County home.”

This work will be performed by George Mason’s transdisciplinary Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities (C-RASC) team. “This work is only possible by engaging a unique transdisciplinary team representing three different colleges, toward enhancing emergency communications resiliency and effectiveness with AI,” said Paul Houser, C-RASC executive director. “We thank Congressman Connolly and the George Mason transdisciplinary vision for the realization of this project, and look forward to making a difference in Fairfax emergency management and beyond.”

Linton Wells II, executive advisor to the Center for Resilient and Sustainable Communities and to the C5I Center at George Mason, said that the university is actively engaged with the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety and Communications (Fairfax County’s 9-1-1 Center), as well as other emergency management organizations.

Fairfax County's 9-1-1 center receives around 400,000 emergency calls annually. Photo provided by Fairfax County

“We talked to public safety officials around Fairfax and the most receptive entity was the 9-1-1 call center,” he said. “We were invited to join operators on the call center floor and observe them taking calls and dispatching people, which was very impressive. They really are interested in training and would like to spend more time talking to the community about what they do.”

Wells added that AI can improve public safety effectiveness in numerous ways.

“It could help reduce delays in processing calls, enhance caller experiences, and improve dispatching efficiency, for example. The plan is to begin by using it to improve training, which is an excellent place to get immediate gains and learn more about how it best can be used.”

George Mason will work with local communities to make citizens more aware of what’s being done in emergency preparedness and will provide feedback to public safety officials. The technology can also help officials interpret public sentiment as a disaster is occurring, supporting another goal of the project, which is to improve stakeholder engagement and enhancing support to underserved communities.

Karina V. Korostelina, professor and director of the Sustainable Peace Lab at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, said that the university will work with local officials on further outreach and communication efforts in support of the project.

“�鶹�� task is to create a systemic community engagement plan that involves Neighborhood and Community Services, Immigration Services, Fairfax County Public Schools and libraries in educating community members about the use of 911 and the role of AI," Korostelina said. "We also will conduct multiple focus groups and townhalls to understand community concerns and facilitate participatory approaches to the improvement of public safety and communications." Her team, which includes PhD student and a post-doc, will implement cutting-edge practices of co-creation and community empowerment to enhance collaboration between communities and government agencies in Fairfax.

Other project investigators from C-RASC and CEC include Kathryn Laskey, professor emerita of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, and Hemant Purohit, associate professor of Information Sciences and Technology, who will closely work with a CEC doctoral student and industry partners to design an AI assistant to enable personalized conversation-based training for call-takers to go through various real-world scenarios at their own pace while accounting for complexities such as varying incident descriptions and multilingual callers.

“Since 9-1-1’s inception in 1968, voice communication has been the cornerstone of 9-1-1 emergency services,” said Andrew Clarke, assistant director of operations in the Department of Public Safety Communications, Fairfax County 9-1-1. “However, with the rise of smartphones, smart homes, and AI, our community has moved beyond traditional voice-based interaction.”

Clarke said this new partnership with George Mason will allow Fairfax County to reimagine workflows, not just improving service, but setting a new benchmark for community engagement. "We are transforming the 9-1-1 landscape to ensure we are as innovative and forward-thinking as the technologies that surround us today.”

In This Story

Karina Korostelina

Paul Houser

Hemant Purohit

George Mason scientist secures $1.4M DTRA grant to study viruses’ impact on organ health

Colleen Rich — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 16:30:04 +0000

George Mason scientist secures $1.4M DTRA grant to study viruses’ impact on organ health Colleen Rich Mon, 10/14/2024 - 12:30

George Mason �鶹�� researcher Aarthi Narayanan recently secured a $1.4M grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to investigate how an infection spreads between organs, and how a therapeutic will impact connected organs. The work will initially focus on mosquito-transmitted viruses while Narayanan hopes to expand the implications from these studies to other human disease states.

Aarthi Narayan. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of �鶹�� Branding

The study will utilize the organ on a chip platform—an emerging technology that more closely replicates human organ-based parameters—to understand how disease affects the body. The focus of this multiorgan effort will be to explore the interactions between the brain, the lung, and liver.

“When you look at an infection like West Nile Virus, for example, it affects the brain early. But that does not mean it only impacts the brain,” said Narayanan, a professor in the Department of Biology in the College of Science. “There is often multiorgan involvement in later states of disease, but we still don’t have a full understanding of how one organ reacts to another’s infection to then know how to provide more effective treatments.” This research seeks to better understand to what extent inflammation from one infected organ will affect another organ that is perhaps not infected.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic underscored how diseases affecting specific organs can disseminate throughout the body, leading to multiorgan failure at various states of disease progression. However, developing specific treatments for each emerging virus takes time, and there is an intense push toward finding broadly applicable solutions that may be used to treat different infections. This study will also explore repositioning existing FDA-approved medications as treatment options for several mosquito-transmitted viruses that do not have treatment strategies at this time.

Narayan will utilize CN-Bio’s organ on a chip platform at George Mason’s Biomedical Research Laboratory to investigate questions that are directly relevant to human disease caused by these mosquito-transmitted viruses.

“This approach will also help us position our therapeutic strategies better and hopefully decrease points of failure down the road, as we strive to come up with rapidly deployable solutions to address the national and global needs for pandemic preparedness,” said Narayanan.

“While technology is expanding in the biomedical field, one of the important differentiators that puts George Mason and its Biomedical Research Laboratory (BRL) at the forefront of this research venture is our ability to ask these globally impactful questions in high containment settings, specifically biosafety level 3 conditions,” said Cody W. Edwards, George Mason College of Science interim dean.

Established through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the George Mason BRL is one of 12 Regional Biocontainment Laboratories in the United States that offer Biosafety Level-3 (BSL-3) facilities.

The study, “Development of human-based, connected multiorgan microphysiological system in vitro models to study alphavirus infection and support countermeasure development,” will take place over the next five years.

Learn more about research at George Mason �鶹��

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College of Science

Defense and Security

Biomedical Research Lab

When expressing gratitude, it’s all in the timing

Jennifer Anzaldi — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 14:42:32 +0000

When expressing gratitude, it’s all in the timing Jennifer Anzaldi Wed, 09/04/2024 - 10:42

Thanks so much for reading this article all the way to the end! No, that wasn’t an editorial error. It’s a savvy managerial motivation strategy lurking somewhere in almost every employee’s inbox or Slack channel.

Mandy O’Neill, an associate professor of management at the Donald G. Costello College of Business at George Mason �鶹��, has discovered a potential new addition to the annals of managerial motivation techniques: anticipatory gratitude.

Mandy O'Neill

We all know that thanking people for a job well-done, or a much-needed favor, is an effective form of positive reinforcement. Psychology researchers classify gratitude as a “socially engaging emotion” that promotes prosocial behavior and strong interpersonal relationships. In the course of exploring how employees cope with high-stress or frustrating work situations, O’Neill and her co-author Hooria Jazaieri of Santa Clara �鶹�� discovered an interesting wrinkle in what we thought we knew about this popular emotion: Gratitude can be used as a form of emotion regulation and, when expressed ahead of time instead of after the fact, can produce that extra “oomph” when it comes to employee resilience and persistence.

Their paper is in press at Academy of Management Discoveries.

The researchers stumbled upon the power of anticipatory gratitude while researching organizational culture and change within the intensive care units of a leading U.S. hospital. It’s difficult to imagine a more gut-wrenching, high-stakes work environment: The ICU units in question receive what one employee called “the sickest of the sickest” from throughout the region. To decompress and process their emotions after especially difficult shifts, employees routinely emailed the group using an internal listserv. O’Neill and Jazaieri were forwarded four years’ worth of messages, which they analyzed with the help of direct experience gained from extensive site visits to the hospital.

In addition to writing heartfelt outpourings of post facto gratitude, ICU colleagues thanked one another for rising to occasions that had not yet occurred. Some of these emails were pre-emptively apologetic (“I may have to take a day or two off from time to time…Thank you for your patience and understanding”). Others seemed to function as pep talks, inspiring teams to keep up the good work (“Thank you…for bringing your a-game to work every day”).

As O’Neill describes it, “The ‘thanks in advance’ phenomenon involves an awareness that you’re going to be annoyed or upset by what I’m asking you to do, so I infuse you with the positivity of that feeling you get when someone expresses gratitude to you. Think about it as an emotional buffer. It helps with the inevitable distress of the task that’s going to happen later. It makes those negative emotions less salient, less powerful, and less insidious.”

The researchers launched several follow-up studies to learn more about the effects of anticipatory gratitude. They chose a context—Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) gig-work platform—that was in many ways the polar opposite of the ICU. “You go from the ultimate interdependent work environment to the ultimate transactional work environment,” O’Neill explains.

“The ‘thanks in advance’ phenomenon involves an awareness that you’re going to be annoyed or upset by what I’m asking you to do, so I infuse you with the positivity of that feeling you get when someone expresses gratitude to you. Think about it as an emotional buffer."

The MTurk workers were assigned to solve extremely difficult puzzles. After completing the paid task, they received negative feedback about their performance and were offered the opportunity to do additional puzzles without being paid. MTurkers who had seen a message of gratitude before the main task voluntarily took on significantly more unpaid work than those who received a similar message after the paid exercise.

“What’s so compelling and surprising for us is that anyone who does work with experienced online gig worker populations knows it’s nearly impossible to induce workers to go beyond their assignment, even by 30 extra seconds, which is about what we were asking for,” O’Neill says.

Questionnaires administered during the study revealed that anticipatory gratitude enhanced feelings of communal self-worth, which contributed to the participant’s resilience, that is, their ability to “bounce back” after the initial failure. In a third study, the researchers found anticipatory gratitude was better than a related positive affect—anticipatory hope—at motivating MTurkers to persevere at (i.e., spend more time on) a different set of challenging puzzles.

At this point, the potential for managerial manipulation should be crystal clear. Indeed, it was evident even to some of the gig workers, who wrote private messages such as, “It may be partial trickery for academic purposes but it was still nice to hear.”

"Gratitude can’t be a substitute for fair pay and decent work conditions...But our findings are clear: anticipatory gratitude works; it is effective.”

For O’Neill, these findings show that gratitude is more complicated than we previously thought. “This paper is one of the very few to show that gratitude isn’t always authentic and prosocial. It can be used strategically, especially for managers,” she says.

Sincerity and strategy are not mutually exclusive. Empathic managers whose feelings of gratitude are so strong that they have to be expressed beforehand could still be taking advantage of the “thanks in advance” phenomenon.

“In all organizations, you need people to stick with difficult or thankless or boring tasks. The challenge, of course, is how to do so ethically. Gratitude can’t be a substitute for fair pay and decent work conditions, for example. But our findings are clear: anticipatory gratitude works; it is effective,” O’Neill says.

In This Story

Olivia (Mandy) O'Neill

Satellite imagery could aid in seeking justice for human rights violations in Sudan

Sarah Holland — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 13:26:43 +0000

Satellite imagery could aid in seeking justice for human rights violations in Sudan Sarah Holland Wed, 08/21/2024 - 09:26

On April 15, 2023, intense violence erupted in Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum between the state-run military and a non-state militia group. Over the past 16 months, the conflict has continued to expand in scale. Peace negotiations have collapsed. Civilians have experienced catastrophic humanitarian conditions.

George Mason �鶹��’s Daniel Rothbart has for many years investigated the plight of civilians in war globally. He believes that out of the 59 protracted violent conflicts around the world, the civil war in Sudan is among the most horrific.

“This conflict has had catastrophic humanitarian implications,” explained Rothbart, the Druscilla French Chair in Conflict Analysis and Resolution in the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. “There have been an estimated 16,000 fatalities and numerous cities destroyed. Right now, Sudan has the largest number of internally displaced persons in the world at 10.7 million people.”

As peace talks failed and conflict escalated, the Conflict Observatory, managed by the MITRE Corp and funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization operations, approached Rothbart and the Carter School to support an investigation into the human rights violations associated with the civil war.

In areas of violent conflict, scholars like Rothbart must find remote methods of data collection. One such method is through Open Source Investigations (OSINT), where publicly and commercially available information, such as satellite imagery, social media posts, and news reports, are collected and analyzed.

Because the Conflict Observatory specifically requested satellite imagery evidence, Rothbart enlisted a team of researchers from the College of Science’s Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, including department chair Dieter Pfoser, to gather and analyze the images. Through this method, they can show side-by-side images of the large-scale destruction of civilian areas over the course of the conflict, such as markets, neighborhoods, and health care facilities.

Comparison photos of an area of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan showcasing the destruction of civilian property as a result of the ongoing civil war, as featured in the Sudan Conflict Observatory Situation Report "Impact on Civilians from Fighting in El Fasher, North Darfur, May 9-27, 2024"

This is a valuable kind of data for understanding the impact and trend of protracted violence, Rothbart said. “It captures the evolution of events over time in a particular region, and the amount of detail these experts are able to gleam from these images has been used to great effect.” As detailed in the report, the experts can distinguish between a building burned and a building bombed: important evidence for building a future case in prosecuting human rights violations.

But satellite imaging only tells part of the story of the destruction and devastation. Other information comes from witness testimonies, which Rothbart and his team gather with the help of the Sudan Human Rights Hub. By combining these two methods of data collection, they can paint a more robust picture of the breadth and depth of violence.

“For example, with both testimonies and open-source intelligence, we have documented that some militant forces have systematically killed civilians, bombed hospitals, and engaged in large-scale gender-based violence, ” Rothbart said.

Through these reports, Rothbart and his team are the primary source of evidence of civilian devastation in the war in Sudan. And while the evidence submitted by the team is under the discretion of the State Department, it could be used to prosecute the perpetrators of the described human rights violations.

The project is also an opportunity for students to gain valuable experience. Current conflict analysis and resolution PhD student Beltina Gjeloshi, and alumnus Mathieu Bere, PhD Conflict Analysis and Resolution ‘22, are both supporting members of Rothbart’s team.

“I’ve learned best practices in open-source investigations, a myriad of new digital tools, and how to capture evidence via different channels, such as satellite images and social media,” said Gjeloshi. “Coupling the training with my human rights and conflict resolution background has allowed me to formulate unique insights and use tools transdisciplinarily.”

“This deliberate violence against civilians requires that the international community takes measures to enforce international humanitarian law, protect civilians, and hold perpetrators accountable. The work that we have been doing in this project contributes to the fulfillment of that moral and legal requirement,” said Bere.

Daniel Rothbart. Photo by Creative Services/Office of �鶹�� Branding

"On a purely academic and scientific side, we have been using, and hope to contribute to improve, some innovative technological tools, especially OSINT and GIS tools, for remotely monitoring and documenting what is happening in conflict zones, and for conducting real-time conflict research,” said Bere. “For example, we are exploring the possibility of developing an AI model that will facilitate some of the steps of the data-gathering process that may be automated. The project is an interdisciplinary work, which requires collaboration between experts from various disciplines."

Every conflict is unique, but there are repeated patterns in motivations, actions, and strategies. Rothbart hopes that the global peace community can learn from why and how peace talks have been unsuccessful in Sudan to improve their approaches to other protracted conflicts.

“We must be prepared to recognize that under certain conditions human beings can commit horrific acts,” Rothbart explained. “But in every case of protracted violent conflict, we find human beings who show an enormous degree of courageous compassion in the face of horrific violence. And that’s important to keep in mind.”

Find pathways to peace at the Carter School

In This Story

Daniel Rothbart

Dieter Pfoser

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Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

College of Science

Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science

George Mason to Launch Nation’s First Center for Small Business AI Innovation with $1M Grant

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 14:40:17 +0000

George Mason to Launch Nation’s First Center for Small Business AI Innovation with $1M Grant Andrew J Schappert Fri, 06/28/2024 - 10:40

In a groundbreaking move set to bolster the economic competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Virginia, George Mason �鶹�� has been awarded a $1 million grant to establish the nation’s first Center for AI Innovation for Economic Competitiveness (CAIIEC).

J.P. Singh: ‘Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the U.S. economy at the local level.’ Photo by Ron Aira/Office of �鶹�� Branding

This pioneering initiative aims to place Virginia at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among SMEs, which often fly under the radar in discussions dominated by federal and big-tech AI advancements.

The $1 million grant, which was sponsored by Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, is directed through the U.S. Small Business Administration. The center will draw expertise from several George Mason colleges, including the Schar School of Policy and Government, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the College of Engineering and Computing.

“Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the U.S. economy at the local level,” said the Schar School’s J.P. Singh, the Distinguished �鶹�� Professor serving as principal investigator. “We will work with SMEs to strengthen their efforts in AI adoption all over Virginia and learn from global cases such as Germany, where its famed SMEs have been called ‘the hidden champions.’”

“I'm excited George Mason’s Center for AI Innovation for Economic Competitiveness is receiving $1 million in federal funding, which I was proud to have helped secure in the recent government funding bill,” said Senator Kaine. “This will help prepare small businesses and Virginians to harness AI and lead to new opportunities for economic growth and jobs in the commonwealth.”

The new center promises to provide much-needed leadership, support, and training to these enterprises, ensuring they do not get left behind in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. George Mason’s interdisciplinary team, comprising computer scientists, public policy experts, economists, environmental and medical scientists, and ethicists, is uniquely positioned to drive this initiative.

“I am proud to have helped secure funding for the Center for AI Innovation for Economic Competitiveness at George Mason,” said Senator Warner in a statement. “This investment will help position Virginia as a leader in AI development by creating programs to help small businesses and communities thrive in the digital market, marking a huge win for Virginians across the commonwealth.”

The university has long been a leader in AI research, and the center aims to extend this expertise beyond academia to make a tangible impact on local businesses.

Amarda Shehu: ‘This is much needed to better position industry in an innovative and competitive environment.’ Photo by Office of �鶹�� Branding

“Here is another great example of how George Mason continues to deliver on our commitment to access and community-engaged technology diffusion, partnering with diverse communities in new and innovated ways,” said Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact Andre Marshall. “What better way to broadly support our local and national economy by providing our small businesses with the disruptive tech and best practices that will shape our future?”

The center will both train and encourage students at George Mason to work with SMEs in Virginia, Singh added, highlighting the initiative’s educational component.

Co-principal investigator Amarda Shehu, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and a longtime AI researcher, emphasized the practical benefits the center will offer.

“As an AI researcher, I see firsthand how fast AI is moving,” said Shehu, who is also associate dean for AI Innovation in the College of Engineering and Computing and associate vice president for research at George Mason's Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA). “I also get to see through my various interactions with industry that such a pace can be challenging, particularly for small businesses. So, we thought about how Research 1 universities, such as George Mason, can unlock the power of AI for small and medium enterprises.”

This center will do that, she said.

“To respond to AI technologies and regulatory requirements moving rapidly, the center will develop an AI toolkit to help small and medium enterprises capture and operationalize the value of AI for the enterprise,” she said. “This is much needed to better position industry in an innovative and competitive environment.”

The center is a collaboration between the Schar School, IDIA, the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, and the Center for Regional Analysis (CRA). These four entities will leverage their existing collaborative connections to jointly oversee and manage the project.

Project leaders include Singh, who is also codirector of George Mason’s Center for Advancing Human-Machine Partnership and a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow with the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin; Shehu; Terry Clower, CRA director; Naoru Koizumi, Schar School professor and associate dean of research and grants; and Jesse Kirkpatrick, research associate professor and codirector of the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center.

In This Story

Amarda Shehu

J.P. Singh

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Center for Regional Development

Center for AI Innovation for Economic Competitiveness

Schar School of Policy and Government

Schar School Featured Stories

Schar School News for June 2024

Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA)

Mason Square

Artificial Intelligence