Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University honored for career in artificial intelligence

Thomas Dietterich will receive the highest honor for a career in artificial intelligence for his four decades of intellectual leadership in machine learning. Only 23 others have received the Award for Research Excellence from the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence since its inception in 1985. The first to receive the award was John McCarthy, known as the father of AI. Dietterich will accept the award in August at the annual conference 2024 IJCAI in Jeju, South Korea.

Cybersecurity scholarship program to build workforce

In December 2022, Abi Whittle was holding down two jobs and taking a full load of classes in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. Then she read about a scholarship, being offered for the first time at the college, intended specifically for students like her: computer science majors following the cybersecurity track. She applied and was selected from nearly 35 applicants as one of five students to join the university’s first cohort of Scholarship for Service recipients.

Catalyst for success

First-generation student Javier Garcia-Ramirez received a lot more from the Catalyst Scholars Program than he was expecting when he came to Oregon State University in 2020.

“I knew I’d be getting financial support, but the program offered opportunities beyond that, opportunities that helped me develop as a whole person,” said Garcia-Ramirez, a senior in computer science and member of the scholarship program’s inaugural cohort.

Addressing bias in AI

Eric Slyman builds tools to uncover where artificial intelligence makes mistakes.

Specifically, the Ph.D. student in artificial intelligence and computer science looks at how AI learns social biases. And they’ve built a tool to help AI auditors address it — quickly, accurately and economically.

Bias in AI can show up, for example, when a user asks it to find or create an image of a doctor.

FY 23 Research Funding Highlights

Oregon State University’s College of Engineering is the nation’s seventh-largest engineering college and a proven leader in research, with impacts that extend statewide, regionally, nationally, and globally. Research conducted here expands knowledge and creates use-inspired solutions in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, clean water, materials science, sustainable energy, high-performance computing, resilient infrastructure, and health-related engineering.