AI in Research

Sangita Judge

Vice President for Operations, Research, Innovation and Impact

Sangita Judge is the Vice President of Operations at Research, Innovation and Impact. Dr. Judge has extensive operational and leadership experience. She has a successful track record of driving organizational and cultural transformation in historically conservative educational and clinical settings. She has a PhD in Molecular Cellular Biology/Cancer Biology, a MSc in Microbiology, and a MBA with expertise in basic research, administration, and management. Prior to her current position, she was the Assistant Vice President for Research at the Division of Agriculture, Life & Veterinary Sciences & Cooperative Extension and Assistant Dean, Research for the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences since 2014. Before that she directed the UA College of Medicine Research Office for six years where she developed the basic and clinical research infrastructure.

Nathalie Risso

Assistant Professor of Mining and Geological Engineering, College of Engineering

Nathalie Risso is an Assistant Professor Mining and Geological Engineering Department at The University of Arizona. She received the B.S. degree in Electronics engineering from Universidad de Concepcion, and the M.S. and Ph.D degrees in Electrical and Computer engineering from the University of Arizona. Her research interests include Cyber-physical systems, Renewable Energy, and Machine Learning. Prof. Risso is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion, leading several associated initiatives in STEM related fields.

Lori Schultz

Assistant Vice President, Research Intelligence

Lori is the Assistant Vice President, Research Intelligence, at the University of Arizona.  She has worked in research administration at the University of Arizona for nearly 30 years.  Her career spans the lifecycle of research management from preaward through postaward.  She works on evidence-based policies, marshalling research data in the service of the institution and  the faculty who do research, and using data to forecast and plan strategies for a resilient future for research. 

Lori has conducted presentations and training on research, data, and technology topics at the AAU, APLU, NCURA, SRAI, FDP, COGR, and Educause.  Lori is on the Board of Directors of ORCID.

Lori has many years of experience in research, software development, non-profit board leadership, and data management and analysis.  She has a particular passion for using data to improve the working lives of the researchers who help us understand the world. 

Lori received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Arizona.

Betül Czerkawski

Professor, College of Applied Science & Technology

Dr. Betül Czerkawski is a professor of instructional design and technology, with a specialization in digital humanities. She is also a faculty member at the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program at UA. Dr. Czerkawski has taught and researched at the higher education level in a variety of roles, as a Professor, Program Director, Fulbright Grant Manager, Fulbright Specialist, Fulbright Scholar, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Distance Education Mentor, Course Designer and Journal Editor for more than two decades. Her research interests include learning design, foreign language instruction and development of online learning experiences with the use of emerging technologies. She has presented and published over 100 peer-reviewed papers on these subjects. 

Steven Bethard

Associate Professor, iSchool

Steven Bethard's research focuses on natural language processing and machine learning, especially modeling the language of time and timelines, and information extraction models for clinical applications.

Steven Bethard joined the University of Arizona School of Information in August 2016, after three years as an assistant professor in Computer and Information Science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University's Natural Language Processing group, Johns Hopkins University's Human Language Technology Center of Excellence, KULeuven's Language Intelligence and Information Retrieval group in Belgium, and the University of Colorado's Center for Language and Education Research.

Scott Pryor

Research Integrity Officer and Training Manager, Research, Innovation & Impact 

Scott Pryor serves as the University of Arizona Research Integrity Officer (RIO). In that role, Scott oversees all aspects of the university’s policy and procedures for investigating allegations of research misconduct. He works with faculty, staff, and university leadership to ensure all investigations are conducted fairly, competently, and in accordance with university policy and federal regulations.

Scott also directs research ethics and compliance training programs for Research, Innovation & Impact (RII). He oversees the university’s Responsible Conduct of Research Program and works closely with RII research compliance units to develop and continuously improve in-person and online trainings to support the University of Arizona research community.

Scott earned an MA in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Religious Studies and Sociology from Guilford College.

We see – or hear about – AI in many types of human and computer interactions, including website chatbots or tools like ChatGPT that can generate human language, recognize images, analyze data, and predict text. As these tools improve and become more accessible, colleges and universities, including the University of Arizona, are examining what the future of AI looks like in academia.

This town hall is the third in the  AI at Arizona event series, aimed at sparking discussion and sharing ideas around AI at the University to broaden understanding, responsible use and access to these technologies.

The Institute for Computation and Data-Enabled Insight is convening the series in partnership with the Office of the Provost and Research, Innovation and Impact, and the UA Debate Series in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Light refreshments will be available until 5:30, giving time to mix and mingle after the event.