--- title: Our Experts date: 2025-08-18T03:00:00-04:00 author: Jordan Dunklee canonical_url: "https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts" section: Pages --- # Our Experts **Our Experts** ## University of Maryland experts are shaping the future of AI... - [to build trust](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#trust) - [to improve health](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#health) - [to strengthen food security](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#food-security) - [to empower and inspire](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#empowerment) - [to create safer communities](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#safety) - [to foster knowledge and critical thinking](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#education) - [to defend against cyber threats](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#cybersecurity) - [to transform business and industry](https://ai.umd.edu/research/our-experts#business) > “AI-infused systems have the potential to enhance human capacity and creativity, mitigate complex society challenges and foster innovation. Achieving this requires a joint effort between those pushing the boundaries of new AI technologies, those who innovate AI applications, and those who study human values and how people and society interact with AI." — Hal Daumé III, *Director, Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM)* ## ...to build trust - **Hal Daumé III** — AI for human self-efficacy, mitigating social harms - **Neda Atanasoski** — AI and the future of work and human rights - **Sheena Erete** — Community-based design, equity in AI and machine learning tools - **Soheil Feizi** — Trustworthy and reliable AI, accuracy of AI detection tools ## ...to improve health - **Reza Ghodssi** — AI-enabled biodevices, chemical and biological sensing - **Heng Huang** — Health informatics, precision medicine, medical image analysis - **Praytush Tiwary** — AI for drug discovery and novel treatments - **Elizabeth Aparicio** — AI chatbots for health information, chatbots for new parents ## ...to strengthen food security - **Catherine Nakalembe** — Machine learning and remote sensing for agriculture and food security - **David Backer** — AI forecasting for prevention and response to food security and nutrition crises, evolution of global humanitarian response - **Hemendra Kumar** — Precision agriculture, smart irrigation management - **Pratap Tokekar** — Environmental sensing, robotics applications for agricultural and civil engineering ## ...to empower and inspire - **Hernisa Kacorri** — Accessibility and assistive technology, users as active directors of AI - **Marine Carpuat** — Multilingual natural language processing, machine translation - **Irina Muresanu** — AI and virtual reality for music education - **Lillian-Yvonne Bertram** — AI and digital technologies in creative writing ## ...to create safer communities - **Zubin Jelveh** — Prediction models of gun and domestic violence, data driven harm and violence reduction - **Maria Molina** — Efficient and equitable weather forecasting, climate extremes - **Vanessa Frías-Martínez** — Urban computing, how machine learning models can aid decision makers in areas like poverty, natural disasters or smart cities - **Chester Harvey** — Innovative technology to provide early warnings of risks to community development and resilience, urban data science ## ...to foster knowledge and critical thinking - **Doug Lombardi** — AI-driven tools to deepen scientific and civic reasoning in K-12 education, critical thinking and collective agency in response to science denial and disinformation - **Naeemul Hassan** — Automated fact-checking, misinformation detection, credible health information - **Cody Buntain** — How people use online spaces in times of uncertainty, disaster or unrest, health misinformation, online manipulation - **Jing Liu** — AI applications for improving K-12 teaching and learning ## ...to defend against cyber threats - **Nirupam Roy** — Deepfake detection and prevention, cybersecurity - **Charles Harry** — International security, cybersecurity, security policy, intelligence - **Jessica Vitak** — Privacy and ethical implications of technology, informed decision-making for technology use and sharing sensitive data - **Nancy Gallagher** — Strategies for enhancing cybersecurity, international security, arms control and nonproliferation, space security ## ...to transform business and industry - **Lauren Rhue** — Technology as a force for positive economic change, economic and social implications of technology - **Jay Lee** — Industrial AI and big data, smart manufacturing, AI-augmented ICU and medical analytics - **Po-Yen Chen** — AI-aided discovery of functional materials including sustainable plastic substitutes - **Tania Babina** — Drivers of innovation, entrepreneurship and technological change, AI's impact on firm performance and labor composition ## Want to explore more experts? This is just the beginning. Browse the full list of 200+ researchers to discover the breadth of AI expertise at UMD, from groundbreaking new technologies to real-world applications across disciplines. - [See the full list](https://umdrightnow.umd.edu/umd-experts-available-to-discuss-artificial-intelligence)