Education & Outreach
TRAILS will take a multi-pronged approach to broadening participation in the design and development of AI-infused systems on a national level. The goal is to support efforts in recruiting, retaining, and rewarding a diverse, inclusive national hub of trustworthy AI researchers.
Summer Research for Undergraduates
Weâre partnering with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create a new national internship program in Trustworthy AI based on its successful summer undergraduate research program.
Student Hackathons
We plan to deploy existing best practices and adapt successful programs such as UMDâs Tech + Research, a branch of Technica, the worldâs largest hackathon for underrepresented genders. TRAILS would like to extend this program nationally, with an AI interdisciplinary research focus to other hackathons and build out a community of undergraduate AI research scholars.
Broadening Participation in Computing
TRAILS will conduct multiple outreach efforts to the public including newsletters and âask me anythingâ sessions at locations like Planet Word in Washington, D.C. For policymakers, TRAILS will organize informational sessions, video primers and webinars. For journalists, TRAILS will host collaborative workshops at Morgan Stateâs School for Global Journalism and Communication, a preeminent resource for Black journalists. For AI practitioners, TRAILS will engage multiple stakeholders via a weekly seminar series and annual symposium, allowing other researchers and scholars to âplug inâ to the TRAILS ecosystem.
AI Summer Program for High School Students
Through the University of Marylandâs Iribe Initiative for Inclusion & Diversity, TRAILS offers an AI Summer Program for regional high school students. The two-week program intends to create a more inclusive and diverse field of AI practitioners and users by targeting and serving underrepresented communities. Students work with faculty to apply AI to solve real-world problems with a social justice lens. They also explore the field of AI through team projects, industry field trips, and presentations from guest speakers. TRAILS intends to expand the AI Summer Program to other areas and universities.
Faculty Mentoring Program
Our cross-institutional faculty mentoring program is designed to build a broader community of AI faculty and retain historically marginalized scholars and teachers.
Social Media & AI-Based Education
We also focus on social media and AI-based educational technologies that have perpetuated harm, trauma and injustice among teachers and youth, particularly among students of color. Led by education and computing specialists at Morgan State University, TRAILS will work with educators, high school students and pre-service teachers to develop algorithms and metrics that can be used to detect and quantify bias in AI systems and data modalities that are salient to traditionally marginalized communities.
GW Center for Women in Engineering
The Center for Women in Engineering offers a variety of programs in support of all engineering students, enabling them to succeed. All resources and events are listed at womenengineers.seas.gwu.edu, and all are welcome.
Professional Development for Educators
Building upon the successes of Morgan State University's School of Education and Urban Studies, we provide professional development workshops and lectures for educators from PKâ12, Higher Education and Adult Learning.
Trustworthy AI Summer Research Bootcamp
Our summer research bootcamp is a 10-week intensive program that provides scaffolding to support interdisciplinary problem formulation, definition and prototyping interspersed with workshops exploring equity in context, policy impact and science communication.