{"id":142231,"date":"2024-07-11T13:43:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T17:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=142231"},"modified":"2025-03-12T13:01:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T17:01:42","slug":"ucf-launches-inaugural-mentorship-scholarship-initiative-for-students-in-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/ucf-launches-inaugural-mentorship-scholarship-initiative-for-students-in-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF Launches Inaugural Mentorship, Scholarship Initiative for Students in AI"},"content":{"rendered":"
Faculty in UCF\u2019s College of Sciences<\/a> and College of Engineering and Computer Science<\/a> are preparing incoming students to keep pace with the emerging multidisciplinary field of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n A team of five faculty, led by UCF\u2019s Center for Research in Computer Vision<\/a> (CRCV), recently received a U.S. National Science Foundation grant totaling nearly $2.5 million over five years to serve as resources to uplift bright yet low-income or struggling undergraduate students in pursuing a well-rounded education in AI.<\/p>\n The initiative is called STRONG-AI (STEM Opportunities for Nurtured Growth in AI), and it is an effort to help students anticipate and navigate the intersections of STEM careers and AI through faculty and peer mentorship and scholarship.<\/p>\n STRONG-AI is a refocusing and continuation of longstanding NSF-supported mentorship programs at UCF that have helped more than 100 low-income students since 2010 find success in STEM education and prepare them for the workforce. It also further reaffirms the university\u2019s commitment to President Alexander N. Cartwright\u2019s vision in continuing to be the University for <\/em>the Future through the Artificial Intelligence Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are countless challenges and opportunities for implementing AI that span many STEM fields, and that is why STRONG-AI is important, says Mubarak Shah, UCF trustee chair professor of computer science and founding director of CRCV.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea is to support the financially challenged and academically talented students to pursue the degrees in STEM majors,\u201d he says. \u201cAI is important, and we\u2019ve had a lot of success in computer vision \u2014 my area of research \u2014 but we want to broaden this to other areas of AI like robotics, machine learning and healthcare. There\u2019s a big need in the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n