Human-First AI Lab (HAL 2.0)

For my short biography and CV, visit this page.

Research Vision

At the heart of my research is the pursuit of advanced AI technologies that are capable of understanding and learning from the rich tapestry of human experiences. I am particularly passionate about developing multimodal AI systems rooted in deep learning (DL). These systems are designed to process and integrate information from various sources, including text, images, and sounds, mirroring the way humans perceive and interact with the world. My aim is to utilize generative language models as a flexible interface for creating intuitive and efficient multimodal AI systems.

Human-First Artificial Intelligence Lab (HAL 2.0)

I lead the Human-First Artificial Intelligence Lab (HAL 2.0), a vibrant research group committed to designing AI technologies that prioritize human values and societal well-being. The inspiration for our lab's name comes from the iconic 1968 science fiction film  2001: A Space Odyssey. Unlike the film's AI, HAL, which becomes a cautionary tale of technology's potential to diverge from human interests, HAL 2.0 is dedicated to ensuring our AI advancements are deeply aligned with enhancing human welfare and ethical standards.

AI for Social Good: Our lab is actively engaged in a variety of projects aimed at harnessing AI for the greater good. This includes an exciting initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) focused on improving STEM education. Through this project, we are developing an AI-powered, just-in-time personalized intervention system designed to enhance the learning experiences and outcomes for STEM students. Additionally, we are pioneering efforts in participatory AI by including underrepresented communities, such as indigenous populations, in our research. This work is supported by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's UNL's Grand Challenges Initiative and aims to ensure that AI development is inclusive, equitable, and reflective of diverse human values.

For information on my past and current research projects, visit this page.

I have created an extensive set of tutorials on ML/DL, which are posted on my GitHub page.

Teaching

My passion for teaching is inspired by my mentor Richard Feynman! I am enthusiastic about conveying the joy and excitement of the world of modern AI through my lectures on ML and DL.

For information on my teaching adventures, visit this page.

Recent News

• [2024, November 29] Our paper on A Context-Aware Approach for Enhancing Data Imputation with Pre-trained Language Models has been accepted for presentation at the 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING 2025)
• [2024, October 17] Presented an invited talk titled "The Future is Now – Transforming STEM Education by Leveraging Generative AI to Model Longitudinal Experiential Data" at UNL’s Discipline-Based Education Research seminar
• [2024, September 9] Our paper on Leveraging Language Models for Analyzing Experiential Time-Series Data in Education has been accepted at the 2024 International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA)
• [2024, August 23] Selected by UNL Chancellor to join a new AI Task Force convened by President Dr. Jeffrey P. Gold. This task force, including experts from all four University of Nebraska campuses, will focus on advancing generative AI and fostering inter-campus collaboration.
• [2024, July 31] Awarded NSF supplemental funding to develop a generative AI tool, using NLP and LLMs to improve the generation of theory-based feedback
• [2024, June 23 - 26] Presented our paper on enhancing zero-shot learning capabilities of Large Language Models at the 2024 ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon
• [2024, June 20] Delivered a tutorial titled "How Can AI Innovations Drive Effective Healthcare Applications?" at the Heartland Workshop on Heart Sounds and AI, hosted by the University of Nebraska Medical Center
• [2024, May 5] Congratulations, Helen Martinez, on receiving the 2024-2025 UCARE (Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience) award!
• [2024, April 17] Congratulations, Ahatsham, on being awarded the College of Engineering Milton E. Mohr Fellowship for the academic year 2024-25!
• [2024, April 17] Presented a keynote speech titled "The Future is Behind Us: Close Encounters of the First Kind with Artificial Intelligence" at the Nebraska Data Conference hosted by the Nebraska Department of Education
• [2024, April 15] Our paper on Enhancing Transfer Learning for Early Forecasting of Academic Performance by Contextualizing Language Models has been accepted for presentation at the 19th NAACL (North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics) Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications
• [2024, April] Participated in an NSF panel focused on Natural Language Processing
• [2024, March 26] Participated as a speaker in UNL Office of Research and Innovation's Faculty Connector Program Panel Discussion on the use of AI in research and creative endeavors
• [2024, March 22] Gave a talk on "Navigating the Rapidly Evolving Terrain of AI Research" at the Advisory Board Meeting of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UNL
• [2024, March 13] Our research on AI-based intervention systems is spotlighted in The 74
• [2024, March 10] Our paper on enhancing zero-shot learning capabilities of Large Language Models has been accepted at the 2024 ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Annual Conference
• [2024, February 22] Gave a talk on "Can Language Models Serve as Interfaces in the Design of Intelligent Systems?" at UNL's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering's Graduate student seminar
• [2023, December 15] My interview on the use of Artificial Intelligence in academia was featured on Nebraska News Service's AI Podcast at UNL's College of Journalism and Mass Communications’ Experience Lab
• [2023, December 10 - 16] Attended the 2023 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) to present our paper at the Generative AI for Education (GAIED) Workshop
• [2023, November 15] Joined a panel discussion at UNL as a speaker to suggest strategies to Nebraska researchers for developing a winning Grand Challenges proposal
• [2023, November 13] A story on the impact of our AI research is published in the UNL Nebraska Today's "Pocket Science" series
• [2023, November 9] Gave a talk on "Towards a Human-First AI: My Journey with Hal 2.0" at the Faculty Research and Creativity Slam in UNL’s annual Nebraska Research Days
• [2023, November 8] Gave a talk on "Decoding Language Models: Unveiling Challenges in Building Intelligent Applications" at UNL's Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Pierson Graduate seminar
• [2023, October 19] Selected to give a talk on my research on Generative AI and Language Models at UNL’s annual Nebraska Research Days. A link to the teaser video
• [2023, October 18] Our paper titled "The Power of Personalization and Contextualization: Early Student Performance Forecasting with Language Models" is accepted at the NeurIPS'23 Workshop on Generative AI for Education (GAIED)
• [2023, September 15] Gave an invited talk on Generative AI and Large Language Models at Baird Holm’s 2023 Technology and Data Protection Forum
• [2023, August 28] We received the 2023 UNL Grand Challenges Planning Grant Award for our research on Participatory Artificial Intelligence for behavior change to improve climate resilience and food security via a tribal non-tribal community partnership
• [2023, August 9] Gave a presentation on "ChatGPT and Limits of AI" to the Lincoln Public Schools (LPS) science teachers at the UNL-LPS STEM Connector event
• [2023, August] Chinh Hoang joined my lab as a Ph.D. student. Welcome!
• [2023, August] Congratulations to Nathan Roberts and Sharif Akil for obtaining the 2023-2024 UCARE (Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience) award!
• [2023, July 19] Our article on AI-based intervention is published in PLoS One
• [2023, July 13] Gave an invited talk on "Modern AI, its discontents, and how I am using it for social good" at LES (Lincoln Electric System)'s PluggedIn event which is targeted for a future leadership development group
• [2023, July 6] Received the Research Development Fellows Program (RDFP) Award
• [2023, June 25 - 28] Presented our paper on the Trajectory-Clustering Framework for Assessing AI-Based Adaptive Interventions at the 2023 ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland
• [2023, June 9] Congratulations Ahatsham for obtaining the David Swanson Memorial Open Science Grid (OSG) Travel Award!
• [2023, May 30] Congratulations to Keyik Annagulyyeva and Yusup Orazov for obtaining the UCARE (Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience) award! Welcome to the team
• [2023, May 23] Received the Faculty Affairs award for the External Mentoring Program
• [2023, May 19] My undergraduate research assistant Nathan Roberts received the Undergraduate Honors Award for the most original research in the 2023 Student Research Days Poster Sessions and Creative Exhibitions. Congratulations, Nathan!
• [2023, April 3] Our paper on AI-based adaptive interventions has been accepted at the 2023 ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Annual Conference
• [2023, March 28] My undergraduate research assistant Nathan Roberts (sponsored by UCARE) presented a poster on his research on the generalizability of deep learning vision models during the UNL 2023 Spring Student Research Days. Well done, Nathan!
• [2023, March 24] Received the 2023 College of Engineering Holling Family Distinguished Teaching Award for Excellence in Inclusive Teaching
• [2023, February 26] My interview on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics was hosted on a UNL podcast
• [2023, January] Ahatsham joined my lab as a Ph.D. student. Welcome!
• [2022, September 2] Received a grant from the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center (NGTC) at the UNL for preliminary research on building an AI to combat misinformation in social media
• [2022, December 11 - 15] Presented our paper on self-supervised learning (SSL) at the 21st IEEE International Conference in Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA) in Nassau, Bahamas
• [2022, October 19] Received the UNL College of Engineering (COE) 2021-2022 Research Excellence Award
• [2022, October 3] Selected as the 2022-2023 Research Development Fellows Program (RDFP) fellow at UNL
• [2022, September] Served as an NSF panelist
• [2022, September 7] Congratulations Nathan Roberts for obtaining the UCARE (Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience) award! Welcome to the team
• [2022, September 2] Our paper titled "Self-Supervised Learning in the Twilight of Noisy Real-World Datasets" has been accepted at the 21st IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA)
• [2022, September 2] Received a grant from UNL's Longitudinal Networks Core (LNC) for preliminary research on the AI-based psychological intervention system
• [2022, August 5] My student Thomas Walton (Summer 2022 UCARE) presented a poster on his research on neural network during the UNL COE Summer Undergraduate Research Fair (SURF). Well done, Tom!
• [2022, July 25] Story of our NSF-sponsored research on AI for behavioral intervention is published in the Nebraska Today
• [2022, June 21] Received the UNL Collaboration Initiative Grant. Role: Co-PI. Project: An Innovative AI-Augmented Real-Time Remote Access Engineering Lab Using Robotics and Computer Vision
• [2022, June 7] Received the UNL Collaboration Initiative Grant. Role: Co-PI. Project: Artificial intelligence-based condition monitoring and fault detection for power system equipment
• [2022, June 1 - 3] Attended the NSF AAAS-Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Initiative summit in Washington DC
• [2022, May 12] Session chair at the 2022 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS)
• [2022, March 23] Congratulations Thomas Walton for obtaining the Summer 2022 UCARE award!
• [2022, February 13] Article accepted in the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems: Technology, Planning, and Operations
• More ...

Contact

Mohammad Rashedul Hasan
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Office: Scott Engineering Center (SEC) C290EE
Lincoln, NE 68588-0115
Fax: (402) 472 4732
Email: hasan@unl.edu