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Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory
Using a NVIDIA supercomputer, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Laboratory at AUM is a breakthrough for educational research, professional development, and AI consulting—both regionally and nationally. Students in AUM’s Master of Science in Management Information Systems and undergraduates in the Business Administration/Information Systems programs use the lab to develop skills in such areas as:

The Lab is also a resource for those in business, institutional, and industrial settings who want to greatly expand the kind of solutions their proprietary data can provide using AI.
Sample Student Projects in the AI Research Laboratory

Sreeja Bethu (left) and Sai Vennela Muttavarapu (right)
Sreeja Bethu (left) and Sai Vennela Muttavarapu (right) created a facial recognition AI algorithm in a standard laptop environment and then ported it to a Raspberry Pi to make the technology small and portable for flexible use in various applications. The system is self-contained, runs independently of WiFi or Internet connections, and recognizes individuals by using only a single stored photograph. The pair will extend their research to recognizing groups of individuals, such as for recognizing attendees in a meeting or a class, and populate a spreadsheet with attendance confirmation. Too, the system can be used to allow or deny entrance into laboratories or other secure locations based on an image.

Hang (Hanna) Tran
Many businesses enhance their revenue-driven planning through forecasting analysis and business intelligence. Hanna’s honors thesis research uses Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs), in particular LSTMs (Long Short-Term Memory) networks, applied to data from Starbucks.
These algorithms were chosen for their ability to drive business efficiency from latent data. The goal is to use data analysis to develop marketing strategies for mobile apps, train neural networks to predict human behavior, and, finally, apply these technologies to recommend products.
Central to the project is assessing the popularity of food and drink products through customer views. Given the vast amount of data involved, the biggest challenge is compressing and aggregating the data in a way that could provide essential insights for the business. A key goal of this research is to minimize the amount of error and prediction in the future through an ensemble of data science techniques.

Mahiteesh Alla & Naveen Lingam
In India, the agriculture sector is an unorganized sector. Through Mahiteesh’s and Lingam’s interest in agriculture and coming from an agribusiness family involved in chili breeding and marketing, they saw the opportunity to launch an agri-tech startup with an Al-enabled platform to help organize agriculture.
Historically, retailers and traders have had the most influence over agricultural product prices, stocks, and flow. It is Mahiteesh’s and Lingam’s hope to become the biggest distributors of agricultural products in India with the help of artificial intelligence. Using AI, their goals are three-fold. To:

Duc Tran
Facial recognition is a tool for tracking an individual’s movements, locating criminals, and as a means to clear security. While much research has been done to improve facial-recognition algorithms, little has been done to study disguises and other means to avoid detection. Using a large data set of faces in various states of disguise, Duc is training AI to learn the specific details necessary to enable detection while the images are altered to thwart certain detection.

Elizabeth Takyi-Botchway
A graduate student in AUM’s MS/MIS program, Elizabeth Takyi-Botchway worked with AI Research Laboratory partner Axis Recovery, a Birmingham-based healthcare organization focused on helping employers improve the healthcare and outcomes for their employees.
Elizabeth’s research investigates patterns in hospitalizations to uncover the nuances of diagnoses and treatment paths that lead to high-cost impacts. The data set for this initial research consists of 2.3-million hospitalizations from New York state and was provided by Columbia University. The models Elizabeth builds will be applied to Axis Recovery’s clients to help mitigate healthcare costs while improving employee health and outcomes.
In the Media
“AI is coming, and it’s coming hard. You have to innovate yourself. At some point, we’re gonna have to put our fear away and learn about it.” –– Guilherme Bittencourt, AUM graduate student
Our faculty and students approach inquiry and problem-solving with fearlessness and creativity. Through our research and industry engagement, we are uniquely positioned to help public and private sector organizations tackle important questions and solve complex challenges through the ethical and strategic use of AI. Additionally, our faculty can help eliminate unfounded fears about AI by helping media separate fact from fiction in their reporting.
Equipment and Integration
The Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory wishes to thank NVIDIA and solutions provider Mark III Systems for their generous participation and partnership.
The Lab is proud to use a new generation of AI super-computing, the NVIDIA DGX Station A100. This dedicated resource provides maximum performance for multiple, simultaneous users anywhere in the world and offers data center technology without a data center or additional IT infrastructure.
Mark III Systems is a leading digital and IT transformation solutions provider with a long, rich history of providing “full stack” technology solutions to enterprises and service providers across North America.


Contact Us

Vickie Riley
Administrative Associate

Vickie Riley
Administrative Associate | College of Business

David M. Simmonds
Assistant Professor

David M. Simmonds
Assistant Professor | College of Business

Lucy Zhang
Assistant Professor
