AI Faculty Fellow Highlights

On 10/23/25, the College of Social Sciences AI Faculty Fellow Priya Raman, Professor, Communication Studies, hosted a hybrid panel discussion on AI in the Classroom that brought students and faculty together for a candid conversation about the rapidly evolving role of Artificial Intelligence in teaching and learning. Panelists included Carol-Lynn Perez, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Communication Studies Internship Program; Dr. Deanna Fassett, Professor and Chair of Communication Studies; Minna Holopainen, Lecturer in Communication Studies and AI industry professional; Christopher Soto, M.S. student in Financial Analytics and Finance & Accounting Associate at DAAP FP; and Geoffrey Agustin, Vice President & Chair of Associated Students and Computer Engineering major. 

Panelists described AI as both a powerful productivity aid and a fast-evolving challenge, emphasizing critical thinking, transparency, and course-aligned guidance over one-size-fits-all rules. Students shared how they use AI to unpack complex concepts, debug code, and explore ethical learning, and how false-positive “AI detection” harmed trust and participation. Faculty colleagues discussed moving from prohibition to “collaborative exploration,” building clear syllabus policies, and redesigning assignments to surface process and evaluation rather than simple regurgitated answers. The conversation highlighted employability in Silicon Valley, privacy trade-offs with enterprise tools, growing campus support for unpacking the complexities associated with the ethical use of AI (including an AI literacy course for students and training for instructors), and ongoing Academic Senate discussions about syllabus guidance. Participants agreed that ethical, scaffolded use, and space to learn without stigma, best serves teaching and learning in the AI arena.

Watch the panel discussion recording, and reach out to Priya Raman (priya.raman@sjsu.edu) with any questions!

Dr. Gianmarc Grazioli, Associate Professor of Computational Chemistry at San José State University, led an engaging hands-on workshop that introduced participants to Python-based data visualization using Google Colab. He began by breaking down core programming concepts such as objects, data types, and libraries, then guided attendees through real coding exercises that used scientific datasets. Participants learned how to load data with pandas, create publication-quality plots with matplotlib, and use AI tools such as ChatGPT to generate and refine code. Professor Grazioli is a strong proponent of process transparency and keeping the human analyst actively involved in the entire data analysis process, which means using ChatGPT to draft Python code that the human can read, adjust, and run rather than outsourcing the full analysis to an AI tool and accepting the results without oversight. He also emphasized that Google Colab and Python are free to use, and when paired with the free level of a ChatGPT account, the entire workflow completely free requires no installation or special software on a computer. During the session, he highlighted practical troubleshooting skills and demonstrated strategies for iteratively improving scripts. Supported by several of his research students, the workshop helped beginners feel confident using Python as a tool for scientific insight. Attendees left with reusable notebooks, sample datasets, and a clear plan for continuing their coding journey.

You can watch the full workshop recording and the follow-up session on melting point data.

Sharesly Rodriguez delivered three AI literacy workshops this fall in King Library’s Digital Humanities Center. These sessions introduced the basics of AI literacy, prompt-engineering strategies, and the Library’s new database-enabled AI tool, OneSearch Research Assistant.

As an AI Faculty Fellow, Sharesly looks forward to collaborating with faculty across disciplines to develop responsible AI use cases and host AI literacy workshops. Working with Yingjie Liu and the Faculty Fellow team has strengthened her work as an AI Librarian with ongoing discussions of AI literacy needs, challenges, and opportunities across campus.

She recently released a comprehensive research study, The Landscape of AI in California Universities and Community Colleges, and is working  on a broader AI literacy initiative, called Defining AI Literacy.

If you are an undergraduate student or a faculty member interested in participating in the Library’s AI Literacy Research Study, please complete the research study's interest form.

As part of the SJSU AI Faculty Fellows 2025-2026 program, Mithila Guha, Assistant Professor of Marketing and AI Faculty Fellow representing the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, led a hands-on workshop titled AI for Learning Success: Basics of AI, Responsible Use & Campus Resources on November 14, 2025. Sixteen SJSU faculty and staff explored how AI can enhance teaching and learning while maintaining academic integrity and human judgment. Dr. Guha guided participants in building their own CustomGPT Course Assistants using their syllabi and SJSU’s ChatGPT EDU license. These tools can potentially help students engage more deeply with course materials by asking structured, course-specific questions about assignments and expectations. Reflecting on the experience, Dr. Guha shared that the most inspiring part was seeing faculty collaboratively experiment with AI while keeping the focus on ethical, purposeful learning. This serves as a reminder that even as technology evolves, thoughtful teaching remains at the heart of innovation.

Hosted by Jason Aleksander, Professor of Philosophy and AI Faculty Fellow for the College of Humanities and the Arts, Fighting Zombies with Zombies offered an opportunity for faculty to reflect on the pedagogical implications of the seemingly pervasive tendency of generative AI to inhibit authentic student engagement. Through shared examples and discussion, the session highlighted experiments with AI pedagogy that aim to resist “zombified” uses of technology by cultivating students’ critical, creative, and human-centered engagements with AI tools.

David Malinowski (Linguistics and Language Development) presented his students’ Theory of Mind Lab, in which learners compared their own reasoning with responses from ChatGPT and Gemini to probe whether large language models genuinely “understand” human thought or simply mirror it. Althea Rao (Art & Art History) showcased her course How to Be Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, where students build small chatbots and perform with them to interrogate empathy, authorship, and the boundaries between data and identity. Aleksander, together with Melissa Rodriguez (current BA student in Philosophy and Political Science), discussed an assignment from his Ancient Philosophy course that required students to critically evaluate LLM analyses of scholarly essays on key classical sources discussed in class. 

The session concluded with a presentation by Mykal Philbin (Philosophy BA student and co-director of the Mike Schmidt Philosophy Tutoring Center) who offered thought provoking questions for faculty to consider in thinking about how to develop guidelines for AI use in their programs and individual courses. 

Together, the presenters underscored how thoughtful experimentation, ethical dialogue, and critical pedagogy can help resist the passivity and disengagements that often accompany unreflective uses of generative AI in teaching and learning.

As part of the SJSU AI Faculty Fellows 2025-2026 program, Ni Zhang, Associate Professor of Public Health and AI Faculty Fellow representing the College of Health and Human Sciences, led a webinar titled AI in teaching: How to facilitate responsible AI use among our students on November 18, 2025. Dr. Ni Zhang introduced basic AI knowledge, the AI assessment scale, and the TrAIT framework for AI integration in Education.
Three distinguished panelists from the College of Health and Human Sciences presented inspiring real-life examples of how to embrace AI in the classroom with rigorous but not restrictive teaching pedagogies while appreciating innovation and novelty.

Distinguished panelists:

Alfred Saatchi, PhD, RN, PCCN, Assistant Professor, The Valley Foundation School of Nursing; Courtney Boitano, OTD, OTR/L, BCBA-D, Doctoral Capstone Coordinator, Occupational Therapy; and  Dr. Gabriela Swamy, Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Packaging.
Eighteen SJSU faculty and staff explored how AI can enhance teaching and learning while maintaining academic integrity and human judgment. Recordings and slides with SJSU AI resources were shared after the webinar with 30 faculty and staff who registered for this webinar including those who had time conflicts.

In early October, six faculty members from the Lurie College of Education and the College of Humanities and Arts attended a workshop exploring how AI is enhancing assistive technology. Lara Ervin-Kassab, the Lurie College AI Fellow and associate professor of teacher education led the group in exploring how AI augments assistive technologies. The hands-on workshop was designed so that attendees “played” with assistive devices and then engaged in critical conversations about AI as a remover of barriers to learning and access. The discussion connected assistive technology to academic, professional, and personal applications for dis/abled students (and faculty/staff) as well as how it might support all students’ success when provided through universal design for learning (UDL) principles. Of especial interest was the station exploring how AI tools can support students’ executive function and metacognitive skills, such as planning, scheduling, breaking projects into manageable steps, and self-reflection on how useful tools are for personal learning and growth. A follow-up workshop is under development for spring 2026, focused on learning about and integrating AI tools for developing executive functioning and professional skills. This hands-on, experiential workshop will be open to any faculty or staff across campus. Details coming in January!