Master's degree in artificial intelligence now within reach of low-income students

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science have received a four-year, $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a project to make the master's degree in artificial intelligence (AI) accessible to high-achieving, low-income students. The accelerated five-year bachelor's degree in science and master's degree in AI program is designed to adapt curricular and co-curricular support to enable students to complete their degrees in AI, autonomous systems or machine learning, which are critically important areas needed to advance America's global competitiveness and national security. "Artificial intelligence is transforming every walk of life from business to healthcare and enabling us to rethink how we analyze data, integrate massive amounts of information and make informed decisions that impact society, the economy and governance," said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean of FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science and a co-principal investigator of the grant. "This important grant from the National Science Foundation will allow us to recruit and train talented and diverse students who are economically disadvantaged and provide them with a unique opportunity to pursue graduate education in an exciting and burgeoning field." By preparing increased numbers of high-achieving, low-income students to become engineers in these fields, this project addresses the need for growing a more diverse STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) research population.