University of Massachusetts-Boston
MA · AI Readiness #188 of 227
AIREDEX™ Score: 5.3 /10
The Paul English Applied AI Institute, launched in 2023 and described by the university as the first of its kind dedicated to democratizing AI across all professions, gives UMass Boston undergrads hands-on AI skills for the workforce.
UMass Boston undergrads across disciplines can join the Institute's 'AI for All' workshop series, the AI Summer Camp, and a Fall Symposium showcasing student AI projects. The Applied Ethics Center, led by Nir Eisikovits, runs a Tech Literacy Initiative with undergraduate-accessible courses on AI ethics and society, plus a Tech Talk program with the City of Boston. Research infrastructure includes two on-campus GPU clusters, Chimera and Gibbs, plus access to the shared Unity cluster at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center.
Pillar grades
- Commitment: C-
- Curriculum: C
- Partnerships: D+
- Research: B
A(I)ttitude™: cautious
Selected Highlights
- $5M Paul English gift plus $2M UMass Foundation match plus $1M BPS partnership (2026) totaling $8M confirmed AI capital -- scored at below-$10M bracket (2 pts); see review flag for bracket confirmation.
- Paul English Applied AI Institute (ai.umb.edu) launched 2023-24 with cross-college planning team spanning CS, English, Management Science, Philosophy, and Honors College; 15-member Student Advisory Council; active programming including symposia, summer camp, and speaker series.
- Applied Ethics Center (Director: Nir Eisikovits) runs IEET partnership with three 2-year AI postdoctoral fellowships, AIEX self-understanding project, and Tech Talk program with City of Boston; ongoing activity confirmed through 2024-2026.
- Google Gemini and NotebookLM available to all students via Google Workspace for Education institutional agreement; both are non-Microsoft qualifying tools with dedicated IT page (umb.edu/it/help/ai-tools/). Two distinct qualifying non-Microsoft tools confirmed = 6 pts.
- AI integration confirmed across Communications (Prof. Gamze Yilmaz 'AI for All' sessions), Philosophy/Ethics (Applied Ethics Center Tech Literacy courses), Management Science (Wei Zhang on PEAAII planning team; Eisikovits et al. 2024 Accounting Horizons paper), and Nursing/Health Sciences (AI-enabled VR simulation and MCNHS research collaboration) -- four qualifying non-STEM departments.