The Provost's Spotlight Talks feature eminent visitors to the university as well as Stony Brook faculty members who have recently been recognized for outstanding contributions in their field.

Transmedia artist Stephanie Dinkins, Kusama endowed chair in art in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University, brings her expertise in AI to the next Spotlight Talk with The Stories We Encode: AI, Love and the Future of Algorithmic Care on Tuesday, October 22, at 3:30 pm in the Charles B. Wang Center Theatre.

Working at the intersection of emerging technologies and social collaboration, Dinkins was named a 2023 TIME 100 Most Influential People in AI. She was recognized for her work with Not the Only One, an ongoing project in which she trained an AI on three generations of Black women to give it cultural roots, a deep history, and a perspective that existing systems do not offer.

The event is free and open to the public, and the discussion will be followed by a reception in the Wang Theatre lobby, hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences for new and promoted faculty.


About the Talk

AI's impact on society necessitates addressing longstanding human rights issues and prejudices. To ensure AI benefits humanity, we must confront institutional biases, rethink our relationship with other beings and emerging technologies, and reconcile ideals with actual power structures. This involves recognizing systemic inequalities, redefining human identity, and equitably distributing resources. AI, if developed and used ethically, offers an opportunity to reimagine a more equitable world for all inhabitants.

Abstract: In this talk, we take a step back and argue that many varied and seemingly unrelated attacks on the web are actually symptoms of one deeper problem that has existed since the web's inception. Whether it is attacks due to expired domain names, cloaking done by malicious websites, malvertising, or even our growing distrust of the news can be largely attributed back to the issue of stateless linking. Stateless linking refers to the absence of any integrity guarantees between the time that a link for a remote resource was created, to a future time when this link is resolved by web clients. We draw on 10+ years of research to demonstrate how stateless linking and the resulting lack of content integrity is the true culprit for many of our past, current, and likely future web problems. Successfully tackling this one really challenging problem, has the potential of solving many of our web woes.

Bio: Nick Nikiforakis is affiliated with the National Security Institute. He received his PhD in Computer Science from KU Leuven in Belgium. He received his MSc, in Parallel and Distributed Systems and BSc in Computer Science from the University of Crete, Greece. His research focuses on web security and privacy, software security, and intrusion detection.

Location: NCS 120

This virtual presentation series is designed to inform the Stony Brook University research community about the Research Funding Landscape of key topic areas. Our Strategic Research Initiatives team will provide insight into the rapidly shifting funding environment using policy briefs, budgetary priorities, and relevant legislation. We will highlight federal and state priorities in the current and upcoming years to help Stony Brook researchers develop strategies for pursuing funding in a rapidly shifting environment. This series is moderated by Mónica Bugallo, Interim Vice President for Research & Innovation.

Join us for the third in the series, focused on the artificial intelligence landscape:


Translating the Funding Landscape for Stony Brook Researchers: Artificial Intelligence
Presented by Catherine Chen, Ph.D., Research Development Associate
Faculty Respondent: Assistant Professor Nav Nidhi Rajput, Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering
Wednesday, April 22, 2026 at 2 pm to 3 pm

Registration is Required

The International Neuroethics Society (INS) Speaker Series on AI & Consciousness

AI has existed as a tool for a long time, performing simple tasks such as sorting documents, suggesting music, and so on. But with the development of new generations of AI, the perception of its value to society has been increasing, as it can bring potential and promising benefits in many areas of human life. AI is known to have errors or biases that result in strange or even dangerous responses, but what happens when in AI-human interaction, the latter have errors or biases? cultural errors or biases? And what could be the implications for human relationships?

Speaker Bio

Dr. Karen Herrera-Ferrá is an independent and global consultant on ethical, medical, psychological, legal, social, cultural, policy-making, human rights and political issues and concerns on the development and use of neuroscience, neurotechnology and AI. She is a former member of the Board of Directors of the International Neuroethics Society.

Register here

https://umaryland.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMvfuqsqDspG9BKMLfUU49UbuUyP_IEvXRh


Abstract:

Many real world complex problems are multi-step reasoning tasks. These range from analytic tasks such as answering questions to automation tasks where agents complete tasks on behalf of users.. Evaluation, datasets, and models for such tasks can be unreliable for multiple reasons. (i) Datasets often have annotation artifacts and biases, allowing models to take reasoning shortcuts. Such shortcuts can allow models to make effective guesses -- or, in a sense, cheat -- to achieve high performance without any multi-step reasoning. This issue is further exacerbated for complex tasks because as the number of the required reasoning steps increases, so do the avenues for bypassing those steps. (ii) Models trained on such dataset/s learn to solve the task by taking reasoning shortcuts instead of proper multi-step reasoning. As a result, these models are not robust (reliable) when evaluated in an out-of-distribution evaluation setting. (iii) Lastly, recent works have shown that language models can solve complex multi-step tasks by producing a step-by-step explanation without any training. However, these methods often hallucinate factually incorrect (i.e., unreliable) explanations when posed with knowledge-intensive tasks.

I address these challenges by carefully characterizing the requirements of robust multi-step reasoning and designing reliable evaluation datasets and training methods that necessitate thorough multi-step reasoning. In DiRe, I first formalize and introduce Disconnected Reasoning, i.e., reasoning that allows models to arrive at the correct answer by bypassing necessary reasoning steps, and use this formalization to measure how much multi-step reasoning a model does on a dataset. In MuSiQue, I built a multi-step reasoning dataset for QA from scratch that avoids cheatability via disconnected reasoning, providing a more reliable evaluation. In TeaBReaC, I developed a synthetically generated multi-step QA pretraining dataset designed to force models to avoid disconnected reasoning and learn reliable multi-step reasoning. In IRCoT, I address the reliability of model-generated multi-step reasoning chains by interleaving models' step-by-step reasoning with a step-by-step retrieval from an external corpus, resulting in more factually correct reasoning. Finally, in AppWorld, I built a multi-step reasoning dataset that requires highly interactive problem-solving in an environment carefully designed to ensure models need thorough reasoning to succeed.
Speaker: Harsh Trivedi

Location: NCS 220 or Zoom

https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/99096379762?pwd=zYCJZQVxRuZd9BboscO4nlodCwsKBr.1
Abstract: Graphs are a universal language of science. Molecules, materials, quantum systems, and knowledge bases can all be naturally represented as graphs. This talk explores how graph-based artificial intelligence is emerging as a powerful engine for scientific discovery. Using molecular design as a guiding example, we examine how modern graph AI enables machines not only to analyze complex scientific structures but also to generate new ones. We will discuss graph neural networks for learning predictive models of molecular properties, graph generative models for constructing novel chemical structures, and emerging multimodal graph-language models that support inverse design and synthesis planning. Together, these advances make graph AI more scalable, interpretable, and data-efficient--key capabilities for real-world scientific discovery. As artificial intelligence enters the era of foundation models, the next frontier lies in multimodal reasoning. Scientific knowledge is not purely textual; it is expressed through structures, code, and experimental data. By integrating graph representations with large language models, we move toward AI systems that can reason across multiple modalities and engage with scientific knowledge in its native forms. Looking ahead, we envision AI systems that behave less like tools and more like collaborators in the scientific process--generating hypotheses, designing candidate structures, planning experiments, interpreting results, and iteratively refining ideas through cycles of success and failure. In this vision, multimodal and agentic AI will enable scientists to explore vast and previously inaccessible design spaces, accelerating breakthroughs across domains ranging from drug discovery and materials innovation to software systems and quantum technologies.

Bio: Jie Chen is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of computing and mathematics, with a current focus on foundation models and AI agents for scientific discovery. His research integrates machine learning, statistics, scientific computing, and numerical linear algebra, with contributions spanning graph neural networks, multimodal graph LLMs, graph structure learning, scalable Gaussian processes, graph coarsening, and matrix functions. He is widely recognized for transformative contributions to graph-based deep learning and large-scale statistical modeling, and for bridging theory with real-world scientific and engineering applications. Dr. Chen has led externally funded, multi-institutional research programs supported by Shell, Evonik, and the U.S. Department of Energy, with applications in materials discovery, financial forensics, and power system resilience. He previously served as a Senior Research Scientist and Manager at IBM Research and the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. He has published extensively in top-tier AI, statistics, and applied mathematics venues, and his work has been recognized by multiple IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards and the SIAM Student Paper Prize. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota and his B.S. in Mathematics with honors from Zhejiang University.

Location: NCS 120

As generative AI (GenAI) continues to reshape the educational landscape, educators must critically examine its implications for course design. How can we adapt our courses to ensure meaningful learning in a post-GenAI world? How can we harness its potential while mitigating risks to student learning? This seminar explores the evolving role of GenAI in higher education, emphasizing learner-centered teaching practices--such as backward design, transparency, and active learning--as essential strategies for navigating both the opportunities and challenges posed by GenAI. We will examine how GenAI disrupts traditional models of teaching and assessment, highlighting course design choices that intentionally promote deep learning and critical thinking in this new era.

Speaker Bio: Dr. Lourdes Alemán is an Associate Director at MIT's Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL). She earned her Ph.D. in Biology from MIT, studying RNA interference (RNAi) with Professor Phil Sharp. She later completed a postdoc in curriculum innovation with Professor Graham Walker's HHMI MIT Education Group. As a postdoc and research scientist, she helped develop software tools for teaching experimental design and data analysis, including collaborations with the MIT-Haiti Initiative. Before joining TLL, she worked at MIT's Open Learning, supporting MIT faculty in blended and online education. At TLL, Lourdes trains graduate students and postdocs in college-level teaching, advises faculty on classroom innovation, and previously designed and taught a hands-on biology module on novel antibiotic discovery for first-year students. She has served on university committees focused on mentoring and advising. Drawing from her experiences as a Cuban immigrant student, she developed MIT's first curriculum on growth mindset and co-founded Flipping Failure, a campus-wide initiative for students to share their stories of academic challenges and the strategies they have used to overcome them.

Ready for Round Two? Dr. Zach Justus Returns! Join us on October 30, 2025, in the SBU Hilton Garden Inn. Buckle up your curiosity for a high-energy morning session with the engaging Dr. Zach Justus as we navigate how GenAI is reshaping not just how we teach, but what we teach. With real talk and questions that hit hard like Are students learning what we think we're teaching? This is your chance to rethink your program's true destination. Whether you're looking to pick up a few takeaways or chart a new direction entirely, this symposium is your space to explore, reflect, and act.

Check-in and breakfast will begin at 8:30 a.m. in order to begin our program promptly at 9:00 a.m.

Registration will remain open until October 15 or until the event reaches capacity. If closed, please contact educationaleffectiveness@stonybrook.edu to request a spot on the waitlist.

The 39th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence will be held from February 25 to March 4, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. More information can be found here.