Binghamton University has awarded more than $48,000 in seed funding to eight artificial intelligence projects spanning engineering, healthcare, education, public policy, social work, human rights and the arts.
The projects were funded in spring 2026 through the university’s AI Seed Grant programme, which is intended to provide opportunities for faculty and students to test the use of AI in academic and applied environments.
Teams involve researchers and students from across Binghamton’s colleges, schools and institutes, with several of the projects deliberately bringing together disciplines that would not traditionally work on the same technology programmes.
The initiative places particular emphasis on student participation, responsible experimentation and the application of AI to teaching, research, public service and community challenges.
“Together, these grants represent a strong cross-disciplinary portfolio of faculty-led work using AI to advance teaching, research, and public engagement across the University,” said Vice Provost for Online and Innovative Education James Pitarresi.
“They’re helping us learn from practical, discipline-specific experimentation with AI while building connections across the campus.”
Projects span healthcare, engineering and education
One project will bring health and wellness studies students together with engineering students to explore how generative AI could help design environments, products and systems that support nutritional health and behaviour.
A second will assess consumer-grade large language models as tools for evaluating research methods and clinical implications within speech-language pathology literature. Students will examine both the potential and limitations of using LLMs for professional and clinical learning.
Social work and computer science students will collaborate on another project developing and testing a conversational AI agent related to early recruitment into substance use disorder treatment. The work will combine technical development with human-centred design and practice-based evaluation.
AI literacy is also being explored through a partnership between teacher candidates and international students. Participants will investigate AI tools for English language learning and academic access while considering ethical use and the different perspectives created by linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
AI projects connect traditionally separate disciplines
Engineering students will also work with music and other non-STEM students through a project covering sound, signal analysis, acoustic perception and generative AI.
The interdisciplinary micromodule will conclude with a demonstration of findings intended to make concepts around intelligent systems more accessible across academic disciplines.
Another project will use Binghamton’s Innovation Lab to bring psychology and industrial engineering students together around healthcare or medicine-related challenges. The project-based learning programme will combine social cognition, systems thinking and AI-supported design.
University President Anne D’Alleva said: “Artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool for helping researchers to sort through data and power new discoveries in a wide variety of fields.
“This funding will support work across the entire University and further Binghamton’s reputation as an innovator and a leader in applying AI technology for the public good.”
AI applied to human rights and local government
The programme also includes two projects applying AI to public policy and civic research.
One will investigate the use of generative AI to detect potential atrocity risks through social media analysis. Teams will work with AI-assisted analysis, dashboards and policy briefs, combining human rights and policy expertise with computational methods to explore potential applications in early warning and prevention.
Another project will use text mining, machine learning and large language models to analyse ethical codes used by local governments across New York state.
Students will use the project to investigate questions in public administration while gaining experience in data analysis, AI-supported civic research and comparative policy analysis.
Rather than concentrating its funding on a single large AI initiative, Binghamton’s seed grant programme is supporting a portfolio of smaller projects across different disciplines. The approach will allow teams to test potential applications and methods in practical settings while involving students directly in the development and evaluation of AI-enabled approaches.
