USF Announces New College to Foster AI Innovation Across Disciplines
The University of South Florida (USF) is set to launch its new College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing this fall, a move designed to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration and prepare students for the evolving technological landscape.
Triparna de Vreede, an assistant professor in USF’s Muma College of Business, whose research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and employee behavior, is enthusiastic about the college’s potential. “How does someone respond to AI? How does AI change their behavior?” she said. “I look at how AI can be designed so that we have the best work performance.” De Vreede plans to participate in the new college while maintaining her role in the Muma College of Business, expecting that the collaboration will benefit both.
USF Provost and Executive Vice President Prasant Mohapatra said, “This is where scholars from nursing, business, ethics, the arts and more can leverage technological advances, especially related to AI.”
This new college, the first of its kind in Florida, and one of the few in the country, aims to produce job-ready professionals in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and computing. Moreover, it seeks to enhance disciplines across all USF colleges, creating 21st-century graduates who can effectively integrate AI into their work.
“That is the best piece of the new college,” de Vreede said. “It has an interdisciplinary nature that will foster collaboration throughout USF.”
The college will employ a “hub-and-spoke model” to encourage university-wide cooperation, according to interim Dean Sudeep Sarkar, whose research focuses on computer vision. Disciplines at the center, or the hub, will focus on foundational research, composed of computer science, cybersecurity, information technology, and artificial intelligence. The spokes will represent specialized areas of study, with initial participation from business, criminology, and social sciences through classes offered in each subject’s respective college.
Students will learn how to use the hub’s expertise to improve work in the spokes’ specialties. Sarkar anticipates that the college will eventually offer interdisciplinary majors, such as computer science with a focus in another field. Students can then be hired by firms, where they can leverage computer science and AI to improve work in their interdisciplinary field.
- Hub and Spoke Collaboration Examples:
- Social Sciences & AI: Fake news and doctored photographs can influence groups. Artificial intelligence can trace trends to learn who is most influenced and why. It can also provide technology that can help decipher what is fake.
- Psychology & AI: Effective computing, which is technology that can recognize and respond to human emotions, can analyze a person’s mood based on what they type. It is already used by some websites and apps
- Business & AI: Artificial intelligence tools like eye-tracking technology and facial expression sensors can monitor participants’ responses to videos and then use that information to tell advertisers whether viewers are interested in the message.
Sarkar explained that in the future, “A room will be sensitive to your mood. If you are feeling down, the room will know and can play music that will bring you out of it or change the lighting in a way that can. You will need to understand psychology and AI to make that perfect.”
USF’s Behavioral AI Lab, directed by de Vreede, is a joint initiative between the School of Information Systems and Management and the School of Marketing and Innovation. This lab already has eye-tracking technology and facial expression sensors in use. “We share resources because they can be used for research in both disciplines, and we figured, why buy two sets of eye trackers?” de Vreede said. “There will be more collaborations like this when we have the new college.”
Artificial intelligence is also being used in the USF Department of Criminology, where Professor George Burruss and students are creating an AI-powered chatbot to assist law enforcement and educate cyber scam victims. They are training the chatbot to provide real-time guidance to help people avoid online scams.
“Collaborations will be everywhere, even outside the disciplinary areas,” Sarkar said. “One college will identify a problem that they would like technology to help solve. Our college can research and develop that technology.”
The Bellini College will lead a university-wide initiative focusing on how to use artificial intelligence to augment work, not replace it. Sarkar said, “The most powerful AI isn’t the kind that replaces human effort — it’s the kind that enhances it. AI should be ambient, working in the background to support creativity rather than overshadow it. Take writing, for example. If AI writes a story for you, the result might be mediocre at best. But if AI helps you brainstorm, refine ideas or uncover new perspectives, the final work – crafted by you – can be truly exceptional.”
De Vreede believes the integration of AI in the classroom will become as commonplace as laptops. “Microsoft Word made life easier. Now USF is at the forefront of helping students understand AI, the advantages of collaborating with it and its limitations.”
As the College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing establishes more collaboration, the university may create additional multi-disciplinary majors, which will facilitate groundbreaking research. “USF is being bold about putting this front and center and allowing it to disperse across the campus,” Sarkar said. “There are many possibilities, and we’ll let it grow organically. This is just the starting point.”
