If the use of drones becomes as prevalent as Mehrnaz Sabet believes, our skies are about to get much more congested, and machine learning could be the answer for safe and autonomous aerial traffic flow.

To help on this front, NASA has awarded a multidisciplinary team led by Sabet, a doctoral student in the field of information science, an $80,000 grant to develop new coordination and communication models for drones that will someday deliver goods and even transport people. 

As part of the grant and in coordination with Cornell, the team has launched a crowdfunding page to help raise additional funds to support the project. 

“Traditional air-traffic control won’t work when there are going to be many different drones in the air,” said Sabet, whose research explores collaborative, autonomous drones. “We’re advancing algorithms that enable drones, whether they are piloted by humans or artificial intelligence, to coordinate with each other and navigate the airspace safely and autonomously.” 

Sabet is the principal investigator on the project, “Learning Cooperative Policies for Adaptive Human-Drone Teaming in Shared Airspace,” and leads a team of seven Cornell undergraduate and Master of Engineering students from the departments of computer science and information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and electrical and computer engineering in Cornell Engineering.

Sanjiban Choudhury, assistant professor of computer science, and Susan Fussell, professor in the departments of information science and communication, will serve as faculty mentors.

The grant comes from NASA’s University Student Research Challenge program, which awards students whose research projects tackle the biggest technical challenges in aviation. 

“This opportunity is a great example of how impactful collaborations can be fueled by industry or new programs from leading organizations like NASA that support innovative research projects from students for real-world applications,” said Sabet, who handpicked her teammates, all of which are involved with CUAir, Cornell Cup Robotics, or Cornell Mars Rover.

Along with Sabet, student team members are: Aaron Babu ‘26, Marcus Lee ‘26, Joshua Park ‘26, Francis Pham ‘25, Owen Sorber M.Eng ‘24, Roopak Srinivasan M.Eng ‘24, and Austin Zhao ’26.

To learn more about this project, visit the project website.

Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Conversational agents (CAs) such as Alexa and Siri are designed to answer questions, offer suggestions – and even display empathy.

But these agents are powered by large language models (LLMs) that ingest massive amounts of human-produced data, and thus can be prone to the same biases as the humans from which the information comes.

Researchers from Cornell Tech, the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, Olin College of Engineering and Stanford University tested this theory by prompting CAs to display empathy while conversing with or about 65 distinct human identities. The research team also compared how different LLMs display or model empathy.

 

Collaborating on a physical object when two people aren’t in the same room can be extremely challenging, but a new remote conferencing system allows the remote user to manipulate a view of the scene in 3D, to assist in complex tasks like debugging complicated hardware.

Congratulations to IS Ph.D. students Ruidong Zhang and Ke Li on being awarded Qualcomm Innovation Fellowships

Dozens of stakeholders responsible for the new building for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science penned their names onto a 20-foot steel beam that will soon buttress the building’s fourth floor at an April 23 event celebrating the ongoing construction.  

At four stories and totaling some 135,000 square feet, the Cornell Bowers CIS building, located south of Gates Hall, is on schedule for completion in spring 2025. Construction began in spring 2023.

More than 300 people joined in two days of campus activities celebrating Cornell entrepreneurs April 11-12, including events to honor Tim Barry ’93 as the 2024 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year. 

Entrepreneurship at Cornell’s Celebration event also included speakers and events exploring everything from artificial intelligence to tech startup investing to building a more inclusive entrepreneurial community.

Richlove Nkansah ’26 was buzzing with excitement the week before spring break – she had just launched her business and was headed to California to pitch it to a group of Silicon Valley Cornell alumni and entrepreneurs.

Nkansah is the co-founder, with Harmony Prado ’24, of CultureCare, a digital platform for BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and people of color) therapists to manage their practice and connect to clients. They met during Nkansah’s first year, at the Engaged to Empower hackathon, where they worked to develop an idea focused on mental health related to children.

It takes a village to nurture social robots. 

Researchers who develop social robots – ones that people interact with – focus too much on design features and not enough on sociological factors, like human-to-human interactions, the contexts where they happen and cultural norms involving robots, according to an award-winning paper from Cornell and Indiana University scholars who specialize in human-robot interaction. 

Nicki Dell, associate professor, information and computer science, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, co-founded (with Professor Tom Ristenpart) the Clinic to End Tech Abuse, a first-of-its-kind clinic to help survivors navigate technology abuse. The clinic was developed in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence. Dell also helps to lead the Home Health Care Work Initiative in the ILR School Center on Applied Research on Work.

Beginning Fall 2024, Cornell undergraduates can minor in artificial intelligence (AI). 

Offered by the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, the AI minor is intended for any undergraduates who anticipate AI playing a critical role in their academic and professional careers. Students will get a solid foundational understanding of the algorithms and techniques that underlie AI capabilities like machine learning, automated reasoning, natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics. 

“The new minor presents another opportunity for all Big Red undergraduates to tap into Cornell’s leadership in AI and learn from world-class scholars who develop, critique, and refine AI systems for the greatest good,” said Claire Cardie, associate dean for education in Cornell Bowers CIS.  

AI is poised to have a transformative impact on all disciplines and society more broadly, making education around AI essential, said Kavita Bala, dean of Cornell Bowers CIS and lead dean of the Cornell AI Initiative. 

“Our students will graduate and live and work in an AI-enabled world. Education around AI is needed now more than ever, as AI becomes more powerful and ubiquitous in everyday life and as industries shift to hire talent to leverage it,” Bala said. “This minor serves students across campus, and across disciplines, who want to understand AI technology and apply it in other disciplines.”  

To earn the AI minor, students must complete six courses: four required Foundations of AI core courses on machine learning, reasoning, human-AI interaction, and ethics, governance, and policy; and two electives. There are nearly 50 electives, including courses like Robot Learning (CS 4756), Text Mining History and Literature (INFO 3350), Statistical Computing (STSCI 4520), and dozens more.

Students with questions about the minor can contact ai-minor@cis.cornell.edu. Please note that while the AI minor was officially approved last May, it will become available to students starting Fall 2024.

By Louis DiPietro, a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.