UC Riverside has received $8 million in federal grants to help the Inland Empire become more proficient in artificial intelligence and better align engineering education with the needs of regional industries.
The two grants, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education through its Strengthening Institutions Program, will support separate projects at UCR’s Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering aimed at preparing students for a workforce increasingly shaped by AI, robotics, and other emerging technologies.
A $5 million grant will expand AI education at UCR and six Southern California community colleges, training students and faculty on how to use the technology effectively and responsibly.
A second grant of $3 million will strengthen partnerships between UCR and industry, allowing engineering programs to adapt their coursework to meet employers’ changing technical needs.
Expanding AI literacy
Led by Mariam Salloum, an associate teaching professor of computer science and engineering at UCR, the $5 million project will establish UCR as a regional hub for AI education.
Called Leveraging AI to Unlock New Career Horizons, or LAUNCH, the initiative brings together UCR and six community colleges: Riverside City College, Moreno Valley College, Norco College, College of the Desert, Copper Mountain College, and Rio Hondo College.
Together, the institutions serve approximately 100,000 students annually.
At UCR, the collaboration will work under the umbrella the interdisplinary Riverside Artificial Intelligence Research and Education Institute (RAISE@UCR). It will draw expertise from the School of Education; the psychological and brain sciences department; and the Bourns College of Engineering’s computer science and computer and electrical engineering departments; and the XCITE Center for Teaching and Learning.
The program will help students understand how AI works, recognize its limitations, and learn to use it productively in their academic work without taking shortcuts that prevent them from learning the foundational concepts and skills they need to master their chosen fields.
Faculty members and other college instructors across academic disciplines will be trained to incorporate AI effectively into their courses. They will attend summer workshops and receive stipends to develop courses that teach students how to use AI in their fields.
The project also will establish an on-campus hub where students can receive assistance from undergraduate learning assistants and participate in AI-related projects developed with community and industry partners.
Salloum said an important goal is to ensure that AI enhances learning rather than allowing students to bypass the intellectual work necessary to master a subject. AI should not replace foundational learning, she said.
For example, her computer science courses include exercises requiring students to write their own code without using AI, although they may use AI later to evaluate their work and suggest improvements.
Syncing engineering education with industry
The second grant, totaling $3 million, will support a project led by Kavan Hazel, who heads UCR’s Advanced and Integrated Manufacturing Hub, or AIM Hub.
The initiative seeks to modernize engineering education by working with companies to identify the skills they need in future employees and incorporating those requirements into university coursework.
Hazeli said manufacturing has changed dramatically as robotics, artificial intelligence, data science, and advanced computing have become integral to industrial production.
Traditional engineering programs, however, often train students within individual disciplines, leaving graduates to acquire specialized, multidisciplinary skills after entering the workforce.
The new project aims to reverse that process by asking employers what skills they anticipate needing and designing coursework and hands-on training accordingly.
Hazeli explained that curricula have grown out of sync with industry needs as rapidly developing computing, robotics, and AI technologies have reshaped manufacturing and other industries.
“We have students go through the same curriculum, and when they go to the workplace, they have a steep learning curve,” Hazeli said. “That has to be changed.”
The five-year project will recruit 10 companies to help shape educational programs, including training for 15 to 20 master’s students and 15 to 20 senior engineering design projects.
The industry feedback will also help inform plans for a proposed master’s degree in advanced manufacturing, which is undergoing review within the University of California system.
Another component involves developing a digital engineering facility where students can use robotics and computer-based simulations to improve the design, testing, and production of manufactured products.
Students will learn to work across engineering disciplines and collaborate with increasingly sophisticated robotic systems, including determining when to rely on AI-generated decisions and when human intervention is necessary.
“By the end of this program in year five, we will have a curriculum that is informed by industry rather than us telling them, ‘This is what it is,’” Hazeli said.
