Children learning their “ABCs” or high school students studying the periodic table can turn to songs to help remember foundational educational concepts. A Florida State University professor is applying the method to chemistry class, using artificial intelligence to create new musical learning aids that help students succeed.

Oliver Steinbock, Cottrell Family Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has previously used AI in his laboratory research to identify chemical compositions of dried salts from images. He is now exploring educational endeavors with the technology through AI-generated songs that explain core chemistry concepts, like thermodynamics and compression, and break down dense equations such as the van der Waals equation.

“I created these chemistry songs as a resource to teach concepts in a different way and create some new interest in the subject matter,” Steinbock said. “These songs can be used by students as at-home study tools, or lecturers could ask students to make their own songs about a topic as an in-class activity and have the students fact-check their songs. It’s just one tool in the toolbox of teaching.”

Steinbock’s 16-song playlist focuses on thermodynamics — the branch of physical chemistry covering interactions among heat, work, temperature and energy — and is available on Suno, a generative AI platform that creates songs based on user prompts. Through different musical genres, Steinbock’s songs teach the laws of thermodynamics, the essential rules of nature that define how energy operates in the universe, which are key foundations for physics and chemistry research.

“Physical chemistry is known as one of the hardest chemistry subjects to learn,” said Wei Yang, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a professor of biochemistry. “Many students have a love-hate relationship with thermodynamics due to many key equations and concepts that they must comprehend and memorize.”

In addition to serving as mnemonic devices that aid memorization through rhythm and repetition, learning songs helps students of all levels feel more comfortable in the classroom and reduce anxiety, according to research from the University of Washington published by the American Society for Cell Biology.

“These songs can have huge benefits for students with different learning styles, especially those who want to reinforce key concepts in their free time,” said Andrew Fredericks, a student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and an undergraduate researcher in Steinbock’s laboratory. “Many people are curious — and maybe a little nervous — about how AI will continue to impact education and society, but it’s exciting to see technology being used in creative ways to help students learn.”

The country-inspired song “Temperature” helps students understand how temperature is affected by the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, while the K-pop inspired song “Z One” teaches the ideal gas law by describing the relationship among pressure, volume, temperature and amount of a substance in a gas.

To develop these songs, Steinbock input sections of his own research papers into large-language models like ChatGPT and Claude and turned the text into lyrics. He then checked the lyrics for factual errors and adjusted prompts as needed before putting the final lyrics and choice of musical genre into Suno. The result was a series of short, catchy songs highlighting core concepts that students sometimes struggle to learn through traditional lectures and reading.

“This project is a really cool example of how AI can be used in education,” Fredericks said. “By combining the chemistry content with music, the songs make the material feel more approachable and enjoyable.”

Steinbock hopes his students use these songs as an additional learning aid to support their studies while highlighting the importance of ethical and responsible AI use.

“In a project like this, I had to check the facts while also considering how much freedom the AI can take to stretch the concepts or mix in cheesy words,” Steinbock said. “AI has the potential to be a useful learning tool, but it still makes mistakes. We must learn to use it safely and constructively.”

Visit the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry website to learn more about Steinbock’s work and research in the department.

The post FSU chemistry professor develops artificial intelligence songs to help students learn complex concepts appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University researchers are part of a multi-institutional team awarded a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop new tools using artificial intelligence to help children with speech and language limitations communicate.

Andrea Barton-Hulsey and Michelle Therrien, associate professors in the FSU School of Communication Science and Disorders, will lead two of six projects supported by the five-year Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Augmentative and Alternative Communication grant.

The team’s work focuses on developing AI-enhanced tools to help children with significant speech and language limitations communicate more easily and precisely. Notably, the collaborative effort also includes a constituent board of adults who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), ensuring that the research is guided by the expertise and lived experiences of people with disabilities.

“I am thrilled that the work of Dr. Therrien and Dr. Barton-Hulsey is being supported through this significant funding,” said Dean Michelle Kazmer of FSU’s College of Communication and Information. “Their combined expertise and innovative application of AI will help improve the lives of young people, both those who use augmentative and alternative communication tools as well as those who interact with them. Their impactful solutions in application of health technologies align beautifully with FSU Health and with the needs of children in Florida and across the globe.”

Therrien’s research project focuses on identifying “social zones” on playgrounds, analyzing the language used in those zones and developing technology supports to help children who use AAC communicate more effectively with their peers.

“Friendships are protective factors for physical health, mental health, academic performance, and community engagement,” Therrien said. “Giving children a voice is critical to building relationships and preventing social isolation.”

Barton-Hulsey leads the literacy assessment portion of the grant, which aims to create and evaluate new technology for assessing literacy in children with intellectual or developmental disabilities who use AAC.

“Providing young children with communication tools not only gives them credibility but also prevents judgment about their true abilities, opening doors to academic learning and further development,” Barton-Hulsey said.

Both projects are part of a larger collaborative effort involving researchers from FSU, University of Arkansas, Auburn University, Penn State University and Temple University, as well as the constituent board of adult AAC users. The team’s efforts also include ensuring that participants are fairly compensated for their expertise and time.

“These grants allow us to address gaps in supporting early communication and literacy development for children who use limited or no speech,” Barton-Hulsey said. “Our collaboration with engineers, educators and adults who use AAC is essential to developing effective tools and strategies.”

The projects under the grant add to the growing body of research based at FSU that help generate and share innovative strategies for improving human communication across the entire lifespan.

“This grant is a testament to the expertise and innovative approaches of Dr. Barton-Hulsey and Dr. Therrien to solving real-world challenges,” said SCSD Director Carla Wood. “This award positions our school as a vital hub for cutting-edge AAC research that will directly impact clinical practice, inform how we prepare the next generation of practitioners, and strengthen our collaborative work through FSU Health to serve children and families in our community and beyond. We are incredibly proud that their work helps ensure that every child has access to the communication tools they need.”

For more information about FSU’s College of Communication and Information, visit cci.fsu.edu. To learn more about FSU’s School of Communication Science and Disorders, visit commdisorders.cci.fsu.edu.

FSU Health is a transformational initiative to improve health in Florida by leveraging Florida State University’s cutting-edge research capabilities and academic offerings to forge new collaborations with clinical partners.

The post FSU part of team awarded $5M to develop AI tools for children with speech and language challenges appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University is partnering with Google to offer students complimentary access to the Google People Management Essentials certificate program, which helps students gain leadership and professional skills, while also learning how to use artificial intelligence (AI) at work.

FSU’s College of Business is leading the university initiative in partnership with Information Technology Services to provide this self-paced management training, giving business students a unique opportunity to gain essential leadership skills and hands-on experience with cutting-edge AI tools at no cost.

FSU is one of the first institutions in the country to offer the Google People Management Essentials course.

“We are excited about our partnership with Google, one of the world’s most prominent tech companies, and the benefits it will offer our students,” said Michael D. Hartline, dean of the College of Business. “This collaboration reflects our ongoing commitment to prepare students for the transformative effects of AI on workplaces and society, ensuring they graduate with the relevant, in-demand skills necessary for a rapidly changing world.”

People Management Essentials is an eight-hour, self-paced course developed by the Google School for Leaders, Google’s center for leadership development. Taught by Google experts, the program equips new and aspiring managers with practical skills to build high-performing teams, set and achieve goals, support individual growth and invest in their own development.

A key feature is hands-on experience with AI tools such as Gemini and NotebookLM, empowering participants to incorporate artificial intelligence into their daily management activities — ranging from setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) goals to developing project plans and customizing communications for a variety of audiences.

“At Google, we’ve seen firsthand how investing in managers creates a more effective, collaborative and supportive environment for all and drives business outcomes,” said Brian Glaser, chief learning officer at Google. “We believe the principles behind effective management are universal. By sharing what we’ve learned, we hope to empower leaders and their teams to thrive in any organization.”

Glaser added, “We believe that great managers create great teams. By making our foundational management principles accessible to everyone, we hope to empower the next generation of leaders to build a better future for teams, one manager at a time.”

For more information, visit business.fsu.edu.

The post FSU College of Business, Google partner to offer free AI-powered management training appeared first on Florida State University News.

A research project in Florida State University’s Department of Geography has been accepted into the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot Start-up program. The project is focused on developing a predictive model to forecast fire frequency and severity in California.

The NAIRR Pilot Start-up program connects researchers and educators to computational, data and training resources essential for advancing AI research and applications. It is led by the National Science Foundation in partnership with 12 other federal agencies and 26 non-governmental partners.

“The main resource from the NAIRR is the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which is necessary to train any foundation model,” said Ziqi Li, assistant professor of the Spatial Data Science Center and the Department of Geography.

Foundation models are a form of generative AI which learn from data sets and apply that knowledge to produce new information. The research project, “Advancing Foundation Models to Predict Future Fires in California,” is led by Liling Chang and Li, assistant professors in the Department of Geography, who are developing a foundation model that examines the history of fires in California to predict when and where future fires may occur and how severe they might be.

“Fires in those ecosystems are very important,” said Chang. “Ecosystems co-evolve with fire, and fires play an important feedback role onto these ecosystems.”

Predicting when and where fires will occur helps fire management organizations reduce catastrophic events and understand the impact of fire management on various ecosystems.

“Our main goal would be to generate the future time series, spatial maps and severity mosaics of fires in California by the end of the century,” Chang said.

The post Florida State University geography researchers join national AI effort to advance wildfire forecasting appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University will join Google’s AI for Education Accelerator program to provide free AI training to students, faculty and staff. The program was announced in the company’s recent $1 billion commitment to education in the U.S. over the next three years.

This investment will support AI literacy programs, research funding and cloud computing resources nationwide, according to Google’s announcement. FSU leads the state of Florida with its dedication to AI training and development as the only R1 institution within the State University System to participate in this program.

“At Florida State, we are committed to providing our faculty, staff, students and researchers with the latest tools and advancements, empowering our community to achieve beyond what many think is possible,” said Jonathan Fozard, chief information officer at FSU. “Our adoption of Gemini for Education reflects that commitment, enabling us to push the boundaries of technological innovation, research discovery and academic excellence, all in a safe and secure environment.”

Google’s AI for Education Accelerator program aims to provide students and educators with AI tools designed to personalize learning, enhance productivity and prepare students for a technology-driven future.

Gemini for Education, which includes data protection free of charge, is accessible to all FSU students, faculty and staff by logging in with their university email and password. The company also offers free AI training to college students as part of its program.

For students, Google’s AI tools serve as a powerful resource for inquiry-based learning, a thought-partner for brainstorming projects, and a personalized tutor to explain complex concepts in a safe, controlled environment.

“Every student deserves access to the AI skills needed to succeed in today’s job market,” said Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google. “We are proud to partner with Florida State University to provide students with our most advanced AI products and training, ensuring they know how to make the most of the technology in the classroom and beyond. This program builds on years of us working together with universities to help students prepare for exciting careers.”

As part of this initiative, FSU is adding Gemini and NotebookLM to its growing list of AI resources available to faculty, staff and students. These tools help faculty and staff create engaging instruction, simplify administrative work and focus more on mentoring students. The program also includes access to Google’s AI Essentials and Prompting Essentials programs for faculty and staff to help them get the most out of these AI tools.

“We are very excited about the AI tools that this partnership with Google will bring to our faculty, staff and students,” said Paul Marty, associate vice provost for academic innovation. “Gemini-powered applications like NotebookLM make it easy for students to create summaries, study guides and practice quizzes, and for faculty to organize course content into shareable notebooks that can serve as an interactive classroom resource for their students.”

For more information, visit ai.fsu.edu.

The post Florida State University joins Google’s AI for Education Accelerator, adopts Gemini for Education appeared first on Florida State University News.

On Sept. 3, the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on the critical issue of advancing American health care through artificial intelligence.

Championed by many organizations, including the American Medical Association, the use of AI in health care is seen as one of the new technology’s most important benefits. It is utilized in ways that improve patient health outcomes, provide surgical precision, enhance diagnostic accuracy and much more.

Florida State University’s Zhe He, a professor in the College of Communication and Information and director of the Institute for Successful Longevity, recently developed a study highlighting AI’s impact in diagnostic accuracy, personalized treatment plans, interpreting medical images, streamlining operations and supporting remote patient monitoring among many successful initiatives.

His research lies in the intersection of biomedical and health informatics, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics. He is an elected fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA).

“AI has already reshaped health care in tangible ways,” He said of the new technology’s transformative impact. “We now use AI to analyze electronic health records, medical images, and even predict differential diagnosis, mortality and hospital readmissions. These tools don’t replace clinicians, but they extend their reach and help reduce diagnostic delays, personalize treatments and improve efficiency. Importantly, AI is also opening doors to rural communities by enabling new models of remote monitoring and telehealth support.”

Delaney La Rosa, teaching professor at the College of Nursing, is an educator and academic leader whose work bridges clinical practice, digital innovation, and equity-centered curriculum design. She is a nationally recognized researcher and speaker on the ethical application of AI in nursing and education.

La Rosa has expertise in health care informatics, the use of AI in health care and the integration of AI in health care education. She explores how emerging technologies can be aligned with human-centered, accessible approaches to teaching and care.

“The area that AI is transforming health care most is in the preemptive area,” La Rosa said. “We’re finding out when a patient is about to decline or when a patient is about to go septic. We are looking through data across populations.”

“In rural primary care clinics, we know that these areas are stretched for staffing,” she added. “What these AI tools can do is they can use the data across that primary office’s entire population of patients and, using the training that it was trained with, can identify patients who are most likely to develop conditions or who are most likely to benefit from preventive programs.”

Media interested in learning about the multitude of ways AI is advancing health care can reach out to Zhe He at zhe@fsu.edu and Delaney La Rosa at dwl25b@fsu.edu.

Zhe He, professor in the College of Communication and Information and director of the Institute for Successful Longevity

1. We’ve seen enormous impacts already, but what other areas in health care do you feel AI can potentially change in the future?

 I see three big frontiers:

 Patient engagement: Tools that help people better understand their lab results, medications and care plans can empower them to make more informed choices.

 Aging and chronic disease management: With our aging population, AI can play a vital role in predicting risks, supporting caregivers and promoting adherence to treatment.

 Clinical research and drug discovery: AI is accelerating trial recruitment, optimizing study design and uncovering new therapeutic targets. Over the next decade, I think these areas will be transformed just as radiology has been over the past decade.

2. How has AI impacted the work you do?

My research focuses on making health information more accessible and actionable with informatics and AI. For example, my team is developing LabGenie, a GenAI-powered system that helps older adults and caregivers interpret lab test results and generate personalized questions for their clinicians. We are also developing AI-based systems to promote adherence to cognitive training, support post-transplant care and identify strategies for HIV prevention and management for young adults. Across all of this work, AI is not an end in itself—it’s a means to improve patient engagement, adherence to treatment and shared decision making.

Delaney La Rosa, teaching professor, College of Nursing

1. What kinds of advancements has the College of Nursing made as it invests heavily in AI?

From my personal perspective, the biggest contribution we are making for AI is two-fold: The first is we lead the nation. We are the first with a degree in health care AI for our students. There is a big juggernaut out there — we must quickly learn how to use AI and then we must quickly teach our students how to use AI and use it ethically, which is another big issue, and then graduate workforce-ready individuals. Not only do we have our degree program, but we are about to release a microcredential where we develop six total courses for a certificate program called Nursing Essentials of Responsible AI. We are also beginning our postgraduate certificate. We’re leading the nation in graduating. We’re getting workforce-ready students.

 The second thing is we are leading an AI consortium and having our first launch summit that’s happening in Orlando on Sept. 17 – the Nursing and AI Innovation Consortium Launch Summit. And what that means is that we have leaders from across industries — research, practice, higher education — who are coming together, and we’re going to sit at the table and determine where we want to go next in AI.

2. How critical is the role you play in terms of AI education?

 I think the most important thing to me is our foundational essentials course. This course gives you a good grounding in the things that are not going to really change much in AI. It’s that base understanding so we can know the language. One thing that nurses are great at is being able to assess the data and information that’s coming out to see if it’s quality and it’s scientific. But you can’t do that in AI unless you have a basic understanding of how it works.

The post FSU experts available to discuss the role of artificial intelligence in health care appeared first on Florida State University News.

The landscape of America’s workforce continues to evolve as issues such as falling birth rates, shifts in prioritized skills and new job growth from AI create an intriguing outlook for the future.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, employers are adding jobs while investing in new technologies but continue to struggle finding skilled talent. While the workforce population continues aging as Baby Boomers choose to work longer, a skills gap is predicted for younger generations who will eventually dominate the labor population.

Florida State University’s Darren Brooks is a senior lecturer and assistant chair in the Department of Management and the coordinator of the MBA Program at the College of Business. With expertise in human resources, learning systems and change management, Brooks is a proven business leader and educator with more than 20 years of private and public sector management and human resource experience.

Brooks is aware of the potential issues that arise for the future of America’s workforce but believes there have been precedents set when society faces rapid change.

“AI will have a significant impact on how we work that may involve the elimination of some types of jobs currently performed by humans,” Brooks said. “However, at the same time new opportunities for work will emerge. This divide between dystopian catastrophe and utopian world of hyper productivity have dominated a lot of the writings and media attention. I take the view that with every technological evolution, being forward thinking and adaptive to inevitable changes are the best ways to deal with change in work or any other aspect of our lives.”

Media interested in interviewing Brooks about ways to best address the changing dynamics of America’s future workforce may reach out to him at dbrooks@business.fsu.edu.

Darren Brooks, Assistant Department Chair, Senior Lecturer and MBA Program Coordinator, College of Business

1. What types of jobs could be impacted by AI?

The emergence of AI into our work and personal space established a new frontier that has both positive and negative impacts. On the job front, while all work will be impacted, jobs that are more routine and subject to replacement by AI technology are subject to replacement. This can span areas of technology, service professionals such as call center agents, and professional positions. In discussing with industry and technology professionals and reviewing research in this area, what has emerged is the need to develop skills that augment the capabilities of AI. These types of job skills enhance the need for AI + human interaction, not reduce it. As I often express to my students, augmenting is about the integrating of both technical skills and human skills. Another way to think about it is that tasks that are commoditized, basic and transactional become tasks that can easily be replaced by AI or other technologies. Tasks that require social intensive skills or skills requiring creativity, complex decision making, empathy and interpersonal skills, management fundamentals, skills-trades, systems thinking, and domain expertise will be better positioned for human workers than AI.

2. How critical are training and development programs to ensure that younger people who enter the workforce don’t have a significant drop-off in skills? 

Training is an essential partnership between employees, organizations, educational and vocational institutions today and even more for the future. In fact, the term reskilling and upskilling continues to be utilized in both academic research and popular media, and for good reasons. Millions of jobs will be affected by AI in some way or another. Over the next few years, as companies figure out ways to scale AI across organizational domains, more jobs will be impacted. Training and development play a key in moving employees from the replaceable job categories to the augmenting jobs. 

Students and working professionals alike should be developing AI skills related to their field but also build skills that have utility across the organization. Another way to contemplate this is to think about the portability of skills. Schools such as higher education institutions, high schools, etc. should teach students the right AI skills alongside traditional human skills to prepare them for shifts in work. By continuous training throughout one’s career, workers — young and old —- reduce the potential for skill loss. This increases their value to an organization and allows them to be re-allocated to other work should their job be automated or eliminated completely. However, I must emphasize that re-skilling and up-skilling are shared responsibilities between employers and employees.

3. What, if any, shifts have you seen in workforce skills over the past 30 years?

 Throughout my career, I have seen tremendous shifts in required work skills, particularly around technology. This includes moving away from premise-based mainframes and desktop terminals to portable computing devices, cloud computing and communication technologies. The complexity and techno-driving influence on work will always evolve. However, as we become more technology driven, what makes us human, or you might suggest unique, continues to elevate in importance.

4. What areas are the most critical to invest in to ensure workforce development remains steady, especially as Baby Boomers continue retiring and younger generations take over. 

The question about investments in workforce development is largely tied to our view of the value of the human race, particularly our capacity and capabilities for work. If policymakers, business and education leaders, and members of society in general find value in the human capacity to create economic, social, cultural value through work, then investments into developing worker skills and thereby opportunities to pursue productive outputs from their work would be a top priority of policy, regulatory, and strategic efforts. More specifically, investments should be made in the next generation to accelerate skill development, expand access to skill development beyond traditional educational and vocational pathways, and prepare workers for a world of work that prioritizes, what I refer to as skill interoperability across the organization than rigid jobs that are defined by narrow job descriptions and tasks that can become obsolete.

The post Florida State University expert available to address dynamics of America’s future workforce appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University launched its fall Faculty Innovators Series this week at the Innovation Hub, where faculty and staff gathered to explore new ways to advance teaching and technology through collaboration. 

Each Wednesday morning, the series brings together faculty and staff from across campus to explore emerging trends in education.

The post FSU’s Faculty Innovators Series spotlights academic innovation and Google partnership appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University’s Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship (JMC) and Universal AI University (UAi) have launched a groundbreaking research and academic partnership focused on advancing knowledge and practice at the intersection of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship.

The strategic alliance brings together two globally recognized institutions to collaborate on joint research, academic exchanges and educational innovation, with a particular emphasis on how AI is transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems — especially in poverty alleviation and family business development.

JMC will contribute leading-edge entrepreneurship curriculum and expertise, while UAi will share its advanced AI research and tools with students and faculty across both institutions. Their collaborative efforts aim to equip the next generation of entrepreneurs with the skills to harness AI for economic and social impact.

“This partnership represents a powerful step forward in equipping students to lead in a rapidly evolving digital economy. We are excited to collaborate with UAi in creating new knowledge and empowering entrepreneurial leaders who can leverage AI for real-world impact.”

— Eric Liguori, associate dean for research and external affairs at JMC

“This partnership represents a powerful step forward in equipping students to lead in a rapidly evolving digital economy,” said Eric Liguori, associate dean for research and external affairs at JMC. “We are excited to collaborate with UAi in creating new knowledge and empowering entrepreneurial leaders who can leverage AI for real-world impact.”

A key component of the partnership will be a quarterly webinar series on the intersection of AI and entrepreneurship, jointly hosted by JMC and UAi. The inaugural session will be held at 8 a.m. EDT Thursday, Sept. 4, and is open to scholars, practitioners and students worldwide.

In recognition of its leadership in entrepreneurship education, JMC will serve as a founding member of the UAi Center for AI and Entrepreneurship, helping shape the center’s vision, initiatives and global collaborations.

“By connecting AI expertise from the first AI university in India with entrepreneurship education expertise from the first entrepreneurship college in America, we’re unlocking opportunities to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” said Simon Mak, founding Vice Chancellor. “We look forward to the research, innovation and student experiences this unique global collaboration will spark.”

About the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship 
The revolutionary and highly experiential Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship at Florida State University is dedicated to teaching those who wish to embark on an entrepreneurial journey. The College attracts students across disciplines and equips them with the entrepreneurial skillsets and mindsets necessary to launch new ventures, innovate, and foster change in an increasingly dynamic, global environment. JMC offers three undergraduate majors, five graduate majors, 10 minors and a vast array of extracurricular opportunities to inspire innovation, instill compassion and ignite an entrepreneurial mindset in the next generation of leaders.  

For more information, visit jimmorancollege.fsu.edu.   

About Universal AI University (UAi):
UAi, based in Mumbai, India, is India’s first 100% AI university, embedding artificial intelligence into all programs and curriculum. As an emerging global university recognized for its cutting-edge work in AI, data science, music, film, design, liberal arts, and business education, UAi’s signature is its relentless focus on experiential learning to prepare students for an AI-initiated future.  

To learn more, visit universalai.in. 

The post FSU and Universal AI University launch strategic partnership at the intersection of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship appeared first on Florida State University News.

This August, Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences will welcome its first cohort of students into a new interdisciplinary master’s degree track that will prepare them to enter a growing job market spanning industries including government, technology, health care, business, education and more.  

The new track in computational linguistics, part of FSU’s Interdisciplinary Data Science Masters’s Degree Program, pulls from foundational concepts of data science and computational research methods to unlock new avenues in the scientific study of language and its sounds, structures and meanings.  

“Rapid developments in artificial intelligence have highlighted the critical importance of analyzing spoken and written language as well as other forms of communication,” said Reinier Leushuis, chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics and a key player in the track’s establishment. “This new track is a perfect example of how interdisciplinary efforts lead to cutting-edge and innovative research that has exciting real-world implications.”

With demand for professional computational linguists — researchers who combine data science with linguistics to process language data — increasing, this track offers full-time and part-time study options as well as funding opportunities like tuition waivers for university and state employees, creating opportunities for working professionals in addition to students pursuing graduate study immediately after earning a bachelor’s degree. 

“AI software that uses voice recognition, such as Apple’s virtual assistant Siri, is developed by computational linguists using natural language processing engineering,” said Tom Juzek, assistant professor of computational linguistics. “They also contribute to literacy programming, language localization, translations, speech data analysis, knowledge engineering, voice interface design, language documentation and revitalization. Their skills are highly sought by government intelligence services and tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Duolingo.”

Students in the computational linguistics track will engage with world-class instructors inside and outside the classroom through opportunities such as the FSU Scientific Computing Artificial Intelligence Seminar in Tallahassee, the annual Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Expo, colloquia and technological resources at the FSU Innovation Hub and more. 

“As linguists, we gain key insights about our research that would be difficult or impossible to achieve without incorporating data science and computations into our work,” Juzek said. “In the last few decades alone, our understanding of language acquisition and children’s language acquisition, for example, improved greatly after using computational methods to analyze many language datasets, similar to datasets students will encounter in their computational linguistics courses.” 

While the track has no thesis requirement, students can pursue research opportunities with a program faculty member via Directed Individual Study and have access to laboratories such as the Visualization Laboratory in the Department of Scientific Computing and the Language Processing and Eye-tracking Laboratory in the Diffenbaugh Building. 

In addition to foundational data science courses on machine learning, regression methods, ethics and more, students in the track may also

take electives such as psycholinguistics, text analysis and deep learning, language invention, and more to stay updated on the newest applications in groundbreaking language technology.

“Large datasets are permeating and impacting every area of scientific endeavor, and this track is especially timely because large language models, the engine of today’s AI revolution, draw deeply from the field of linguistics,” said Gordon Erlebacher, director of the Interdisciplinary Data Science program and a professor in the Department of Scientific Computing. “By launching this track, we’re positioning FSU students at the forefront of a transformative field combining computational techniques with linguistic insights.”

Visit the FSU Computational Linguistics website to learn more about the new master’s degree track, including application information.

The post FSU unveils new master’s degree track in computational linguistics for Fall 2025 appeared first on Florida State University News.

The development of more accessible artificial intelligence (AI) models has transformed the field of health diagnoses and medicine, with AI being used for diagnostic accuracy, personalized treatment plans, interpreting medical images, streamlining operations, supporting remote patient monitoring and much more.

Researchers from the eHealth Lab at Florida State University’s School of Information have been evaluating the application of AI as a tool to aid health care providers in making more accurate patient diagnoses. The advancement has the potential to enhance treatment methods and improve patient outcomes.

Senior Author and Director for FSU’s Institute for Successful Longevity Zhe He and Visiting Assistant Professor Balu Bhasuran are among the co-authors on the multi-institutional research. The study has already garnered significant attention, with the paper being accessed more than 3,000 times since its publication in mid-March.

The paper, which was published in npj Digital Medicine, expands on FSU’s LabGenie project, a patient-engagement tool aimed at improving older adults’ understanding of lab test results.

The research team has been exploring the feasibility of using large language models (LLMs), a type of AI that learns from a large amount of text to answer questions accurately, to assist clinicians and improve differential diagnosis accuracy and efficiency. Differential diagnosis (DDx) is a critical step in clinical decision-making, helping health care providers distinguish between conditions with similar symptoms.

“The AI generated differential diagnosis is very comprehensive in covering all possible diagnoses for patients,” He said. “What this study helps show is how AI can potentially be used as a tool to help practitioners make more informed decisions for their patients.”

The study involved utilizing the LLMs to generate lists of the top one, five and ten DDx for clinicians’ evaluation. Researchers assessed the accuracy and predictive power of the LLMs and examined how incorporating lab test results impacted their diagnostic accuracy.

“What this study helps show is how AI can potentially be used as a tool to help practitioners make more informed decisions for their patients.”

– Zhe He, senior author and director for FSU’s Institute for Successful Longevity

The study tested five LLMs — GPT-4, GPT-3.5, Llama-2-70b, Claude-2 and Mixtral-8x7B — using clinical vignettes, or narrative patient-related cases, derived from 50 case reports. Their findings reveal that lab test data significantly improves diagnostic accuracy, with GPT-4 achieving the highest performance.

Specifically, GPT-4 achieved 55% top one accuracy and 60% top 10 accuracy with lab data, with lenient accuracy reaching 80%. Lab tests, including liver function, metabolic/toxicology panels and serology/immune tests, were generally interpreted correctly by the LLMs.

“When we asked the model for the top differential diagnosis, most of these models were able to produce the patient’s exact diagnosis,” Bhasuran said. “That’s very interesting because it implies that even in rare case diseases, the model is able to predict that.”

The research aims to help address well-known areas of concern often felt in health care settings from both the provider and patient perspective. Accurate diagnosis is crucial for effective patient management, directly influencing treatment decisions and overall patient outcomes. Reducing diagnostic errors helps streamline patient care, eliminating the need for excessive or repeated testing and ultimately lowering health care costs through reduced hospital stays and unnecessary procedures.

The work was supported by an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality grant and partially supported by the University of Florida-Florida State University Clinical and Translational Science Award and the National Library of Medicine. It also included collaboration with Tampa General Hospital and coauthors from Florida State University, the National Library of Medicine, Emory University, University of South Florida and University of North Texas Health Science Center. FSU Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) students Angelique Deville, Hailey Thompson, Maggie Awad and Yash Alva assisted in extracting key information for the case reports.

To learn more, visit ehealthlab.cci.fsu.edu.

The post FSU researchers’ new study explores AI’s ability to improve differential diagnosis accuracy appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy (COSSPP) and College of Communication and Information (CCI) now offer a graduate certificate in Digital Applied Social Science (DASS) to address complex social science questions using cutting-edge digital tools and ethical frameworks. Graduates of the DASS program will be uniquely prepared for impactful careers at the intersection of data science and social science, with opportunities in various fields including social research, public policy, marketing, communications, business intelligence and academia.

“The Digital Applied Social Science graduate certificate provides students with insights into and hands-on experience with AI and big data on issues central to the social science and policy fields,” said Tim Chapin, dean of COSSPP. “This new certificate ensures that students are well-equipped to work on social and policy problems using the latest tools and frameworks, and that they enter the modern workforce with the skills and confidence to tackle these challenges.”

This 18-credit graduate certificate includes four core courses and two electives, teaching students how to gather data from databases, crowdsourcing and application programming interfaces (APIs). It also builds essential skills in data management, analysis and visualization to ensure accurate and efficient results.

Hands-on training in computational tools, such as network analysis, natural language processing and artificial intelligence (AI), prepares DASS students to engage with social challenges thoughtfully and effectively.

“This new certificate ensures that students are well-equipped to work on social and policy problems using the latest tools and frameworks, and that they enter the modern workforce with the skills and confidence to tackle these challenges.”

– Tim Chapin, dean of FSU’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy

The program embraces an “ethics as practice” approach, which embeds ethical reasoning throughout the research process and emphasizes responsible use of digital data and tools.

The coursework equips students with the skills and knowledge to navigate information policy issues, with special attention to information ownership rights, privacy rights and public access to information. The approved course electives are offered by both COSSPP and CCI.

“Collaboration among disciplines provides the opportunity for students to gain more knowledge from more sources, and in ways they may not otherwise have imagined, to approach an issue or a topic,” said Dean Michelle Kazmer of the CCI. “We are proud to partner with the COSSPP for this certificate and thrilled to be able to provide students with a multidisciplinary approach that will inform their worldview as they enter the modern workforce and society.”

Admission is competitive, with applications for this cycle due by April 1, 2025. Students must apply in the spring each year for admission to start the certificate program in the fall semester or wait for the next application cycle.

Eligible applicants are graduate students with a 3.50 GPA currently enrolled in select colleges: Communication & Information, Social Sciences & Public Policy, Criminology & Criminal Justice, Social Work or Business. Students from other colleges and non-degree-seeking students are not eligible at this time.

To learn more about the Graduate Certificate in Digital Applied Social Science (DASS) and specific course requirements, visit cosspp.fsu.edu.

The post FSU launches new graduate certificate to equip students with advanced digital tools and ethical frameworks appeared first on Florida State University News.