CAA Academic Alliance Announces Representatives Of AI Technologies Champion Network And AI Technologies Network Awardees
Elle Peterson
Richmond, VA – The CAA Academic Alliance announces the inaugural cohort of their newly-launched
AI TECHNOLOGIES CHAMPION Network, as well as the recipients of their inaugural
AI TECHNOLOGIES Network Awards for the
2025/26 Academic Year.
The CAA Academic Alliance implemented the
AI TECHNOLOGIES CHAMPION Network to recognize, connect, and elevate faculty and staff who are creatively and responsibly integrating artificial intelligence technologies into teaching/learning, research, student success, leadership development and institutional effectiveness. This initiative supports the Alliance’s Strategic Roadmap (FY26–29) with commitments to all three of the Alliance’s core values:
Collaboration, Innovation, and
Inclusion. By combining expertise and working together, Alliance institutions will accomplish more, and much more rapidly, than any single institution could achieve individually, driving synergistic institutional transformation, and resulting in findings that can be disseminated widely.
As the use of AI is impacting higher education, structured and collaborative approaches are essential for implementation that is cohesive, consistent and ethical. The
AI TECHNOLOGIES CHAMPION Network initiative addresses this transformational challenge by recognizing leaders across the Alliance, building a community of AI technology champions and preparing inter-institutional teams for near-future extramural funding efforts.
Launching as a novel initiative in October, 2025, the CAA Academic Alliance requested applications from the thirteen institutions comprising the Alliance. Nearly 400 applicants responded to the call, with 22 faculty/staff members successfully creating the Alliance’s Class of 2025/26
AI TECHNOLOGIES CHAMPION Network – listed below:
Sarah Cansler Campbell University
Scott Kelly Campbell University
Becka Rich Drexel University
Michael Wagner Drexel University
Daniel J. Anderson Elon University
Michele Lashley Elon University
Yohannes Bekele Hampton University
Mariel Friberg Hampton University
Ethna Lay Hofstra University
Grace Valdez Hofstra University
Stephanie Lynch Monmouth University
Weihao Qu Monmouth University
Chyi-lyi Liang North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Yimesker Yihun North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Daisyane Bareto University of North Carolina Wilmington
Julian Keith University of North Carolina Wilmington
Samita Heslin Stony Brook University
Margaret Schedel Stony Brook University
Miranda Donnelly Towson University
Lei Zhang Towson University
Dawn Edmiston William & Mary
Daniel Miller Runfola William & Mary
AI TECHNOLOGIES Network Awards are announced as follows, with a summary of each Awardee’s ongoing scholarship and project outcomes:
Daniel J. Anderson, Elon University
Daniel J. Anderson, special assistant to the president at Elon University, has spearheaded an international AI literacy effort reaching tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff worldwide. In 2023, he led an effort involving scholars from 48 countries to produce a
statement of principles guiding higher education’s role in preparing humanity for the AI revolution. The statement
was released at the United Nations Internet Governance Forum in Kyoto, Japan, and has been endorsed by educators globally.
In 2024, he was lead author of the
Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence, a student-focused publication of Elon’s
Imagining the Digital Future Center, published in partnership with the American Association of Colleges & Universities. In 2025, Anderson led development of the next edition of the Student Guide to AI, created with input from nearly 200 scholars and students. This comprehensive guide addresses AI skills in research, writing, creative work, data analysis and learning, while tackling academic integrity and ethics. More than 26,000 copies of the free student guides have been downloaded by users at 4,000 institutions across 141 countries. Anderson has also customized the guides for over 100 colleges and universities, and is currently working on a new student guide to be published in 2026.
Dr. Samita Heslin, Stony Brook University
Dr. Samita Heslin, MD, MBA, MPH, MA, MS currently serves as Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, as well as an attending physician, Deputy CMIO, and Quality/Informatics Division Chief. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Harvard University; M.D., M.B.A., and M.P.H. degrees from Stony Brook University; and M.S. degree from Oregon Health and Sciences University. She completed her Emergency Medicine Residency at Stony Brook University Hospital in 2021, where she was Chief Resident. She has received numerous local and national awards in Emergency Medicine and is double board certified in Emergency Medicine and Clinical Informatics.
Dr. Heslin’s work integrates Stony Brook Medicine and the broader university campus and demonstrates how responsible AI can be applied across clinical care, research, and interdisciplinary education. Her AI ambient documentation project improved workflow efficiency, reduced clinician burnout, and enhanced patient communication. These outcomes directly benefitted physicians, nurses, and clinical educators, while also informing collaborative research with Computer Science, Health Sciences, Public Health, and Engineering faculty. Her AI medication safety, drug interaction, and triage research programs further unified campus expertise. Her projects provide shared datasets, reproducible development pipelines, and opportunities for multi-disciplinary problem-solving and engage faculty and students from multiple schools around a common challenge: how to develop high-quality AI that is clinically meaningful, technically rigorous, and ethically grounded. This integration serves as a powerful bridge between academic departments and clinical practice. She developed and offers a “Digital Health and AI” course, which advances her work into the educational mission of the university. Designed for students across disciplines, it provides a shared foundation in responsible AI, bias mitigation, ethics, clinical use cases, and real-world evaluation. These integrated approaches offer strong relevance across her home institution and beyond, in AI education, translational research, and ethical deployment. The collaborative structure of her scholarship includes models widely applicable across higher education and ideal for a shared community of practice dedicated to innovative and ethical uses of AI.
Dr. Julian Keith, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Julian Keith, Ph.D., cognitive neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology, is the Faculty Fellow for AI in the College of Science and Engineering at UNCW. He has developed a suite of AI agents that support teaching, research, advising, and faculty review processes. Agents such as
PsychAI,
Mindful Mentor,
ExperiMentor, and
LabSim are examples of the instructional aspects of the project and enhance learning without replacing crucial human interactions. They promote deep conceptual reasoning, inquiry-based exploration, research design and statistical thinking, and simulated experimentation. Students use these agents to test ideas, clarify understanding, and arrive in class ready for deeper discussions. The fundamental value is higher-quality educational experiences for students. Two additional agents extend this work institutionally: an advising support agent that assists with navigating curricula and degree requirements, and an agent to assist with annual report and review processes to ensure low friction, fair, clear, evidence-based annual review processes.
The next step is the establishment of an AI Academic Studio at UNCW, built around secure approved platforms. This studio will serve as a collaborative hub where faculty translate creative ideas into responsible AI applications, supported by shared templates and ethical-use guidelines. The commitment is to scale innovation while preserving academic integrity, data privacy, and human-centered oversight—offering a model that can be transferred across the CAA Alliance and beyond.
Dr. Yimesker Yihun, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
Dr. Yimesker Yihun is the Ford Motor Company Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University, where his work advances human-centered artificial intelligence across research, education, and student success. Most of this work has been peer-reviewed and disseminated through leading journals and international conferences. His scholarship integrates artificial intelligence with physical systems, human expertise, and ethical design to address real-world challenges in healthcare, manufacturing, and higher education.
In rehabilitation robotics, Dr. Yihun develops artificial intelligence-driven frameworks that integrate physiological sensing, motion data, and adaptive learning to optimize upper-limb rehabilitation. This work demonstrates how artificial intelligence-guided motion planning can enhance targeted muscle engagement while preserving biomechanical safety and enabling more personalized rehabilitation strategies. Complementary research in automotive manufacturing applies explainable artificial intelligence and data-efficient learning to defect detection and quality inspection, addressing practical challenges in data-limited industrial environments.
In parallel, Dr. Yihun advances engineering education through the responsible integration of artificial intelligence. His peer-reviewed work demonstrates how structured generative artificial intelligence prompts embedded in engineering design courses strengthen critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and self-directed learning readiness in alignment with Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology outcomes. Together, these efforts position artificial intelligence as a collaborative partner that augments human judgment and supports scalable innovation across the CAA Academic Alliance and beyond.
Dr. Lei Zhang, Towson University
Dr. Lei Zhang, Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University, integrates
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and medical image analysis to transform disease prediction and healthcare decision-making. His current research addresses a critical gap in osteoarthritis diagnostics, where manual knee MRI scoring is labor-intensive and lacks consistency. Utilizing the NIH Osteoarthritis Initiative dataset, Dr. Zhang developed a sophisticated deep learning pipeline to automatically quantify
Cartilage Loss Fraction (CLF), which is a quantitative biomarker directly linked to knee replacement outcomes. His model achieved a high
AUC of 0.917 and supports reproducible measurements at a cohort scale.
Beyond technical research, this project creates a hands-on learning pathway for undergraduate and graduate students. Through weekly mentoring, students contribute to dataset curation, preprocessing, and model evaluation, building essential technical skills and research communication.
Responsible AI practices are foundational to this work: Dr. Zhang utilizes fully de-identified data and HIPAA-compliant workflows while monitoring for scanner bias. Collaborating with clinical partners like the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he will share code and teaching modules with
CAA Academic Alliance partners to expand the cross-campus adoption of deployable, trustworthy AI that enhances clinical precision.
The CAA Academic Alliance provides leadership development and inter-institutional collaborative project opportunities for the
AI TECHNOLOGIES CHAMPION Network and
AI TECHNOLOGIES Network Awardees, culminating in a scheduled in-person convening set for June 2-4, 2026, hosted on the campus of UNCW in Wilmington, NC. Additional details will be shared in a future release.
About The CAA Academic Alliance
As a higher education academic consortium that facilitates collaboration and communication across its 13 member institutions, the CAA Academic Alliance was formed in 2002 to academically link the higher education institutions of the CAA (Coastal Athletic Association) conference. The Alliance serves a diverse audience across its member institutions: engaging faculty, staff, and students in meaningful initiatives that enrich the academic environment, advance student success, and drive innovation and best practices in higher education.
www.caa-academics.org