UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) recently announced eight projects that will receive funding from the college’s Seed Grant Program.

The program provides preliminary funding for IST researchers and colleagues to initiate new projects. The college solicited research proposals throughout the fall 2018 semester, and a faculty committee reviewed and provided recommendations to Andrew Sears, dean of the College of IST, for final selection.

“We are pleased to provide support for a number of projects in their early stages, which have great potential to develop into larger, externally funded pursuits,” said Sears. “These projects illustrate the amazing variety of domains that IST research impacts. While this is just a small sample of the research within the college, these projects seek to enhance health and improve security through the application of artificial intelligence, assist refugees resettling in the U.S., combat substance abuse, support increased human creativity, engage learners through online interactions, and explore information sharing and privacy in online environments.”

The projects selected for funding include:

—“Development of a Mobile AI-based Rapid Stroke Screening Method for Emergency Rooms” – James Wang, professor of IST, and Sharon Huang, associate professor of IST, in collaboration with Houston Methodist Research Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College.

—““ICT-enabled Integration of Resettled Refugees in the U.S.” – Carleen Maitland, associate professor of IST, and Clio Andris, assistant professor of geography (Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences).

—“Watch Over: Using Apple Watches to Assess and Predict Substance Co-use in Young Adults” – Saeed Abdullah, assistant professor of IST; Ashley Linden-Carmichael, assistant research professor of biobehavioral health (Penn State College of Health and Human Development); Stephanie Lanza, director of Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center and professor of biobehavioral health (Penn State College of Health and Human Development).

—Towards Building Explainable Techniques for Deep Learning Based Security Applications” – Xinyu Xing, assistant professor of IST; Lynn Lin, assistant professor of statistics (Penn State Eberly College of Science); and Gang Wang, assistant professor of computer science (Virginia Tech College of Engineering).

—“Visual Storytelling: Generation, Post-Editing and Applications” – Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang, assistant professor of IST.

—“Web-Scale Search and Analysis of Privacy Policies” – Shomir Wilson, assistant professor of IST, and C. Lee Giles, David Reese Professor of Information Sciences and Technology.

—“Bringing Students Together Online: Visualizing and Nudging Implicit Connections” – Mary Beth Rosson, professor of IST and associate dean, and Michael Zeman, director of the Penn State Student Engagement Network.

—“Game-theoretic Modeling of Individual Self-disclosure Online” – Sarah Rajtmajer, assistant professor of IST, and Anna Squicciarini, associate professor of IST.

“The College of IST is committed to supporting interdisciplinary projects that will have an impact at the local, national and global levels,” said Sears. “These projects involve numerous collaborations, highlighting the interdisciplinary foundation of the college, and the diversity of these projects reinforces the potential for IST research to impact the way that people work, communicate and entertain themselves. IST faculty and students, through their research, change the way people live.”

This article was originally published in Penn State News.