AI Catalyst Cohort 2026-27
The 2026–27 AI Catalyst Fellows are twenty-one faculty from across Grounds, each pursuing a one-year project that brings a new area of AI into their research. The program provides seed funding, cohort coaching, and Data Analytics Center support from August 2026 through August 2027.
Meet the Cohort
Windy Alonso | Nursing
Project: AI-Enhanced Exercise Coaching and Daily Exercise Diaries to Support Long-Term Exercise Adherence in Adults with Heart Failure
Ashok R. Asthagiri | Medicine
Project: Generative AI for personalized prediction of vestibular schwannoma growth
Jordan Bryan | Data Science
Project: AI-Guided Molecular Design for Nanoparticle Antibiotic Delivery
Kory Burns | SEAS
Project: AI for Nuclear and Nuclear for AI (ANNA)
Shuaiyu Chen | Darden
Project: LLM-Based Measurement of Geopolitical Tensions from 20 Million Analyst Reports: Implications for the Economy and Financial Markets
W. Streit Cunningham | SEAS
Project: A Reusable AI Workflow for Literature-Driven Materials Discovery
SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor | Batten
Project: Text-based ideal points for the U.S. Congress
Rita Gunn | Darden
Project: AI-Assisted Corporate Disclosure: Measuring How Generative AI Is Changing 10-K Language
Edwin Hu | Law
Project: What Do Private Companies Disclose? Measuring Disclosure Gaps in Private Securities Offerings at Scale with LLMs
Jamie Jirout | Education
Project: AI tools to enhance research on children's curiosity and cognitive development
Hakeoung Hannah Lee | Education
Project: Building Capacity in Computer Vision and Spatiotemporal Deep Learning for AI-Enhanced Multimodal Learning Analytics
Michael Livermore | Law
Project: Fifty Years of Environmental Law Discourse: An Open-Model Computational Analysis
Charles Machan | Arts & Sciences
Project: From Data to Discovery: Building AI Competency to Accelerate Energy-Relevant Catalyst Development
Christine Mahoney | Batten
Project: Whose Voice Counts?: A Modern Information System for Democratic Congressional Lobbying
Michelle Personick | Arts & Sciences
Project: Combining Parallel Experimentation and AI to Accelerate Synthesis Discovery for Complex Materials
Eric Shuman | Arts & Sciences
Project: Mapping the Design Space of Protest Effectiveness Research Using an AI-Assisted Systematic Review
Agnieszka Swiatecka-Urban | Medicine
Project: Beyond KDPI: An AI Pilot to Validate Marginal-Kidney Durability Against National Registry Data
Rolando Vargas | Arts & Sciences
Project: Kuna/Guna Art: Digital Collection Physical Return
Ashish Venkat | SEAS
Project: MOSAIC: Compiler-Guided Context Engineering for Reliable Coding Agents
Bev Wilson | Architecture
Project: Warming Planet, Moving People: Estimating Climate Migration Flows in Southeast Michigan
Steven Zeichner | Medicine
Project: AI-Enabled Rapid Vaccine Platform