University of Nebraska AI Taskforce

NU System AI Institute: Leadership and Governance

The NU AI Institute will act as the overarching hub for AI research, education, innovation, and workforce development across the University of Nebraska System. It will have a system-wide leader responsible for guiding the overall vision, strategic planning, and collaborative execution across campuses. Its core responsibilities will include:

• Develop a 3, 5, and 10-year strategic vision for AI research, education, and workforce development.
• Promote foundational AI research, interdisciplinary applications, and use-inspired AI aligned with Nebraska’s unique strengths.
• Evaluate and implement strategic cluster hires to strengthen AI expertise across the Institute and the campus-specific centers. These cluster hires will prioritize critical AI areas such as machine learning, computer vision, AI ethics, cybersecurity, and AI applications in agriculture and health.
• Lead efforts to secure external investments and partnerships with industry leaders like AWS, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.
• Oversee ethical AI policies and responsible deployment practices.
• Facilitate cross-campus collaboration, including shared infrastructure, interdisciplinary research teams, and system-wide training programs.

Establish Campus-Specific Centers of Excellence as Part of the AI Institute

Each University of Nebraska campus will host one or more specialized AI centers based on its strengths and resources. These centers will serve as focused hubs for research, application, and workforce development. Additionally, some cross-cutting areas of AI expertise that require faculty collaboration across campuses will be housed at the Institute level. [The examples that follow should not be considered prescriptive nor the only model for which expertise can be clustered. In the presence of existing expertise, clusters, and centers, AI expertise could be embedded within those structures without the development of an additional center or institute. In other cases, Centers could be housed across a couple of campuses to bring relevant expertise together.

University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC): Center for AI in Health

Focus:

• AI-driven healthcare innovation, including medical imaging, personalized medicine, and predictive analytics for patient outcomes.
• Integration of AI tools for clinical decision support, telemedicine, and genomics-based diagnostics.
• AI ethics in health applications, emphasizing privacy, bias mitigation, and equitable access to healthcare technologies.

Key Initiatives:

• Develop interdisciplinary collaborations between health sciences, computer science, and bioinformatics.
• Evaluate and prioritize cluster hires in AI healthcare innovation, ensuring critical areas such as bioinformatics and medical AI are covered.
• Create an AI-driven health innovation lab for industry partnerships and translational research.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL): Center for AI in Agriculture

Focus:

• AI applications in precision agriculture, crop management, and livestock monitoring.
• Use of AI for climate-resilient farming practices, digital twins of farms, and sustainability solutions.
• Leveraging IANR’s extensive datasets on genetics, climate, and agricultural production.

Key Initiatives:

• Foster partnerships with agricultural industries to test and deploy AI-based technologies.
• Develop AI tools for rural and farm optimization, including drones, IoT devices, and predictive analytics.
• Evaluate cluster hires in AI for AgTech, focusing on data science, robotics, and agricultural modeling.
• Train students and professionals in AI for AgTech, addressing Nebraska’s agricultural priorities.

University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO): Center for AI, Urban Innovation and Business

Focus:

• AI applications in smart cities, transportation systems, cybersecurity, data governance, and business applications.
• Human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered AI innovations.
• Collaboration with city governments and local businesses to implement AI-driven urban solutions.

Key Initiatives:

• Develop smart urban infrastructure solutions to improve safety, efficiency, and accessibility.
• Strengthen cybersecurity research to protect Nebraska’s digital systems.
• Evaluate cluster hires in HCI, AI cybersecurity, and AI-driven urban systems.
• Develop and evaluate AI’s use in business and legal applications (with the UNL College of Law and Colleges of Business across NU).
• Train professionals in AI ethics, privacy, and data sovereignty.

University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK): Center for AI Workforce and Rural Development

Focus:

• AI workforce development for rural communities through upskilling and AI literacy programs.
• Deployment of AI technologies to support rural businesses, education, and public services.
• AI training tailored for Nebraska’s workforce needs, focusing on regional economies.

Key Initiatives:

• Offer specialized AI professional development and micro-credentialing programs for educators, students, and rural professionals.
• Develop AI tools to improve education delivery, particularly in rural and underserved areas.
• Evaluate cluster hires to strengthen AI-focused workforce development and digital literacy initiatives.
• Facilitate technology transfer and commercialization of AI solutions for rural enterprises.

New Cross-Cutting Center: National and Homeland Security AI Center

Focus:

• AI research and applications in national security, cybersecurity, threat detection, defense systems, and emergency response.
• Collaboration with state and federal agencies to develop AI solutions for homeland security.

Key Considerations:

• This center could be housed at a yet-to-be-identified campus or directly within the NU AI Institute to enable faculty expertise from multiple campuses to contribute to cross-cutting research areas.
• Foster collaborations with defense partners and federal funding agencies to address critical national security priorities.
• Evaluate cluster hires in AI areas such as cybersecurity, machine learning for threat analysis, and secure AI deployment.

New Cross-Cutting Center: AI Center for the Humanities, Arts, and Ethics

Focus:

• AI research and applications in the fine arts and the humanities.
• Additional focus on ethical uses and moral considerations in using AI within society, including collaborations with other Centers regarding the implications of AI in various scenarios and use-cases (such as warfare, employment, and future work).

Key Considerations:

• This center could be housed at a yet-to-be-identified campus or directly within the NU AI Institute, enabling faculty expertise from multiple campuses to contribute to cross-cutting research areas. AI in Arts and Humanities might best sit within a couple of campuses, whereas a closely aligned ethics expertise might best be a focus within the system-wide Institute itself.

The NU AI Institute will prioritize AI education and workforce development, ensuring students at all levels are prepared to engage with and critically evaluate AI technologies.

Core Undergraduate AI Competencies:

• Develop NU-wide AI technology competencies in technical, evaluative, practical, and ethical AI literacy.
• Emphasize critical thinking in evaluating AI tools, their applications, and societal impacts.

Current and Emerging AI Degree Programs:

University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL):

• BS in Data Science with AI-focused coursework.
• Ph.D. in Computer Science, which includes cutting-edge AI research opportunities.
• Forthcoming online-only MS in AI, designed for business and industry professionals who wish to upskill so as to address the growing demand for AI expertise in their workplace (in conjunction with UNO).

University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO):

• BS in Artificial Intelligence, a dedicated undergraduate program preparing students for AI careers.
• Forthcoming in-person MS in AI, designed for college students wishing to expand their education past a BS/BA degree and which will provide advanced technical training, designed to address the growing demand for AI expertise in industry (in conjunction with UNL).

Key Curricular Initiatives:

• Encourage faculty across the campuses to evaluate needed AI competencies and general education curriculum content, stressing how best to use AI tools coupled with critical thinking, to ensure academic rigor.
• Integrate AI ethics and societal impact studies into academic programs to promote responsible AI use and deployment.
• Develop interdisciplinary AI certificate programs and minors accessible to students across all disciplines.

To strengthen AI research, education, and leadership:

• Conduct a needs assessment for strategic cluster hires at both the institute level and within campus-specific centers.
• Prioritize hires in critical AI areas such as machine learning, cybersecurity, robotics, AI ethics, and domain-specific applications like healthcare, homeland security, and agriculture.
• Use cluster hiring to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, attract top-tier talent, and address emerging AI challenges.

• Launch professional development programs, summer institutes, and AI-focused fellowships to build Nebraska’s AI-ready workforce. These opportunities should be available to faculty, staff, and other Nebraskans.
• Offer undergraduate research opportunities in AI applications across disciplines to support innovation and experiential learning.

The University of Nebraska must make cutting-edge AI tools available to its students, staff, and faculty.

• Existing tools available to faculty and staff include Microsoft Copilot AI, Zoom AI Companion, OpenAI licenses (UNO), Adobe AI features, and (upon request) cloud services from AWS, Google, and Azure.
• In the near future, NU needs to develop a secure and compliant research infrastructure across all campuses, invest in GPU resources to support foundational and applied AI research, foster strategic partnerships with industry players (AWS, Azure, Open AI, etc.) to attract new research opportunities, develop capabilities to scale cloud platforms seamlessly in response to researcher needs, create the internal infrastructure for dataset discovery and sharing, and provide training to optimize the use of AI tools and infrastructure.

As a rapidly emerging tool for students, staff, and faculty across the NU system, developing a collaborative AI training and professional development framework is important.

• Publish system-wide statements and resources on responsible AI use and ethics.
• Embed ethics and responsible AI considerations into all research, professional development, and curricular programs.
• Fund AI-dedicated training and support positions at system and campus levels.
• Communicate resources through newsletters and shared calendars.
• Offer financial support for AI-focused training and workshops.

• Pursue federal grants (e.g., NSF National AI Research Institutes) to support foundational and applied AI research.
• Establish public-private partnerships with industry leaders to drive innovation and commercialization.
• Collaborate with Nebraska policymakers to ensure AI research supports state economic priorities.

• Appoint leadership for the NU AI Institute: Hire a system-wide executive leader to oversee the institute and strategic planning.
• Identify and create dedicated campus Centers of Excellence: Establish and support focused research and application centers at each campus.
• Initiate strategic cluster hires: Recruit faculty across high-priority areas (e.g., machine learning, AI ethics, cybersecurity, AgTech).
• Develop Plans to leverage Private and Internal GPU infrastructures and secure cloud platforms: As appropriate, make available scalable, research-grade AI computing infrastructure.
• Pursue major federal grants (e.g., NSF AI Institutes): Dedicate effort and personnel to secure external funding to support research and workforce development.
• Evaluate needs for additional joint AI degree programs and certificates: Fund development and marketing of interdisciplinary degrees and online graduate programs.
• Fund support roles for training and AI integration: Hire or reassign staff dedicated to AI tool deployment, curriculum support, and professional development.

• Develop and disseminate policies and best practices on AI usage for students, faculty, and staff.
• Use existing communication infrastructure to promote AI-related events, training, and resources.
• Encourage and train staff and faculty to use current tools like Microsoft Copilot, Zoom AI, Adobe AI, and OpenAI licenses (where available).
• Form cross-campus AI curriculum working groups.
• Begin collaborative evaluation of general education and program-specific AI competencies.
• Pilot micro-credential programs using current faculty.
• Launch AI literacy and professional development offerings targeted at rural professionals and educators.
• Coordinate a system-wide AI professional development plan.
• Use existing platforms to organize webinars, workshops, and summer institutes.