UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The AI Hub, an inclusive forum to encourage and inform a diverse audience about artificial intelligence (AI), its uses and impacts, AI activities, and organizing across the university community, has appointed a new director.
Mehrdad Mahdavi , associate professor of computer science and engineering and associate director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Engineered Systems (CAFÉ), began the position on July 1.
“he [Mahdavi] “Mehrdat is truly an AI expert and has been very actively involved in the AI Hub,” said Guido Cervone, interim director of Penn State's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS). “Mehrdat is highly regarded by previous director David Hunter and the other members of the AI Hub. Under Mehrdat's direction, we will further foster the various AI activities taking place across campus. AI is truly revolutionizing the entire enterprise of science, and ICDS will play a major role in enabling and supporting AI research.”
“This is a truly exciting moment,” Madhavi said. “We can take AI to the next level, and the Hub and ICDS are well positioned to take up this effort and bring together people from different sectors to push the boundaries. A unified strategy is essential to elevate our joint efforts and achieve greater success.”
In this role, he said he hopes to accelerate science by effectively leveraging AI for scientific discovery and efficiently addressing complex scientific challenges.
“As AI becomes more prevalent in science, we expect to see a seamless blend of traditional scientific inquiry with new approaches, from hypothesis generation, data analysis, and simulation to experimental evaluation,” says Madhavi. “This integration has the potential to dramatically improve our ability to tackle scientific challenges that currently seem intractable.”
“ICDS has been investing heavily in AI over the last few years through collaborative hiring, research initiatives, seed grants and student funding. The ICDS-sponsored AI Hub is a grassroots organization for community organizations, and we are looking to preserve its origins while also providing a new overall strategy. Meerdad will be pivotal in driving the AI Hub forward and actively participating in conversations with colleagues within and outside of ICDS,” said Cervone.
Mahdavi said he first became interested in AI while studying computer science in Iran, exploring the fascinating intersection of machine learning, theoretical computer science and algorithmic game theory.
“It has been a truly rewarding experience for me. AI offers the transformative potential to tackle extremely complex problems, based on rigorous mathematical and statistical principles. It is this combination of practical impact and theoretical depth that is the true appeal of AI and machine learning,” said Madhavi.
Under his leadership, the interdisciplinary mission remains very important, he added.
“Our goal [with the hub] “Our goal is to build a collaborative ecosystem that fosters AI research and creates greater synergy across Penn State. We need to foster collaboration between researchers with expertise in a variety of fields, from healthcare to materials science, medicine, drug discovery, smart manufacturing, climate, astronomy, cosmology, robotics, automation and agriculture,” said Madhavi. “This interdisciplinary approach will bring together AI experts, domain scientists, data experts and methodologists, and that's what the AI Hub aims to achieve.”
Cervone added that under Mehrdad's leadership, “we will be able to increase the visibility and footprint of AI across the university. We have a lot of expertise across our different campuses, colleges and institutes, but the AI Hub is the central unit that brings it all together. Mehrdad has brought forward a lot of new ideas to bring us together.”
