The possibilities for cross-discipline partnerships between USF鈥檚 Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing and other academic fields are reshaping how faculty collaborate on research across campus and beyond.
That collaboration is a focus of the Bellini College and reflects its hub-and-spoke model that connects it with disciplines across the university to both further research and prepare students for careers in a technology-driven world.
鈥淚t means that we will collaborate with outside entities,鈥� said Larry Hall, the assistant dean of research in the Bellini College. 鈥淲e're not the kind of college where we're just going to write our proposals, or we're just going to work on our proposals, our grants. We are going to try to include other investigators from relevant disciplines.鈥�
That focus has led to two exploratory research collaboration meetings across different disciplines 鈥� behavioral and community sciences, and medicine, in the last two weeks.
Julie Serovich, dean of USF鈥檚 College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, highlights the importance of cross-discipline research.
Julie Serovich, dean of USF鈥檚 College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, highlighted how important and relevant cross-discipline research is throughout both fields at an on-campus town hall meeting on Nov. 7 with its faculty and community partners.
鈥淚 think the college has already taken a really strong lead in terms of artificial intelligence and virtual reality and the different sciences,鈥� Serovich said. 鈥淭here is nothing about AI and virtual reality that has not impacted every single unit in this college, from criminology to communication sciences and disorders, and all of our behavioral health disciplines.鈥�
Faculty from both colleges were showcased and one highlighted cross-discipline research, including:
Teaching vocational education using virtual reality to individuals with disabilities
AI-enabled training for individuals with disabilities: A $9.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration funded the Delivering Innovative Vocational Education through Virtual Technology project that uses virtual reality and artificial intelligence to train skilled trades to youth and adults who have disabilities.
The virtual reality program has been shown to help participants learn faster, retain more information and is more fun, which leads to more engagement for the students.
鈥淎 benefit to virtual reality is that some of these skilled trades have an element of danger when you're learning,鈥� said Tammy Jorgensen Smith, an associate professor in the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. 鈥淪o, in the virtual reality, they鈥檙e actually doing the skill, and if they do something that would cause them to get a pain or a shock, it'll just buzz. And artificial intelligence also is incorporated to give immediate feedback.鈥�
Julia Woodward, an assistant professor in the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, discusses her work with augmented reality.
Changing the design of augmented reality for adults and children: Julia Woodward, an assistant professor in the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, discussed work with augmented reality headset interfaces and how experiences should be designed differently for adults and children. A one-size-fits-all approach isn鈥檛 necessarily the best, Woodward found.
鈥淐hildren鈥檚 expectations with technology are very different than adults on wide range of devices including AR headsets,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat's because children are still undergoing cognitive and motor development. It is really important to understand how to design devices for both adults and children to meet their needs, expectations and just improve their overall experience with these technological devices.鈥�
Woodward explored how adults and children interact with virtual objects and AR headsets, asking groups of children and adults to move a virtual cube, using gestures in the air.
Adults preferred hand gestures to interact with the cube, along with speech. Children
preferred full-body gestures, even kicking and punching the cube. Few thought to use
speech.
Evaluating intelligent virtual agents in AR headsets: Woodward partnered with USF鈥檚 College of Education for a study exploring how to design
safe, transparent and trustworthy AI social companions for children.
鈥淏ecause they (children) are utilizing those technologies, we understand there鈥檚 a
lot of risks with that,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o, how can we design for those populations to
really safeguard them while they utilize this work?鈥�
Developing AI tools to assess PTSD in children
Diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorders in children can depend on subjective interviews and questionnaires. Those can be limited by developmental and emotional factors. Alison Salloum, a professor of social work in the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, and Shaun Canavan, an associate professor in the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, are building an AI system to identify PTSD in children using facial recognition.
鈥淲e know that when we interview parents and we interview children, there is a wide discrepancy in terms of reporting post-traumatic stress symptoms,鈥� Salloum said. 鈥淧arents tend to under report because many of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress are internal. Also, when parents have their own trauma, they're seeing it through their own perception.鈥�
Children specifically have a difficult time reporting PTSD symptoms because of avoidance, shame and cognitive understanding or wanting to protect their parent.
鈥淚f we can develop an objective measure, we will be better able to diagnose and hopefully get more children into treatment and use it for treatment 鈥� to not terminate treatment too early,鈥� she said.
Other joint research projects discussed at the town hall also included: AI modeling development for clinical documentation, VR-based positive psychological intervention on mental health and chatbot development for cybercrime prevention.
During the meeting, Serovich also discussed her experience attending several panels at a national conference. Topics for that included the development of unregulated AI-driven apps, proposed legislation for AI app regulation and professional AI solutions within the industry.
Serovich said it鈥檚 conversations like the ongoing research talks that need to continue.
鈥淭he purpose is to introduce (faculty) to some things that have been happening in our college already, but hopefully spur some ideas that you might have,鈥� Serovich told those at the town hall meeting. 鈥淲e need to be involved in this. Let's be serious 鈥� Small Business Innovation Research grants are designed for this. They are made for researchers to work with businesses and help them develop better technology.鈥�
Exploring medical research possibilities: Tampa General Hospital
At another meeting, a team of doctors from Tampa General Hospital met to discuss current and ongoing joint research projects with USF鈥檚 Bellini College faculty.
Audience members ask questions during a recent joint meeting with staff and faculty from the USF Bellini College and Tampa General Hospital.
鈥淎I is a big piece of what people want to see,鈥� Hall said. 鈥淪o, AI and cancer (research) is a good thing that can enable them to do some cutting-edge research that they might not be able to do on their own. We've heard from people studying breast cancer, people studying blood cancers, people doing research on various different kinds of cancers. And I think there's a place for AI in all of those.鈥�
Already, USF faculty has been working with doctors at Tampa General on several projects that were highlighted in the meeting.
Assistant professors Ankur Mali and John Templeton discussed their collaborative work with Dr. Adrian Kohut at Tampa General Hospital鈥檚 Cancer Center of South Florida. Their ongoing work with AI systems could soon help patients better understand complex cancer pathology reports, among other pending projects. USF Professor Sriram Chellappan also is working on collaborative AI research on cancer patients post treatment.
Hall expects ongoing conversations like this will lead to more proposals for research projects, along with funding collaborations 鈥� with some larger proposals getting funding from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.