Siobahn Day Grady Wants Everyone to Be AI Literate

IEEE Spectrum · 2 months ago · 53

Siobahn Day Grady launched the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Research (IAIER) at North Carolina Central University in January 2025, the first AI research institute at an HBCU, to build AI literacy across disciplines and address the unequal distribution of AI resources in higher education. The institute has engaged over 2,800 students, faculty, and community members through programs funded by a $1 million Google.org grant, including mandatory freshman AI courses and cross-departmental seed grants up to $10,000. The challenge now is sustaining momentum as demand grows faster than capacity, particularly as HBCUs receive less than 1 percent of federal research and development funding despite representing 3 percent of four-year institutions.