The UC Davis College of Engineering is leading the way in foundational AI research as well as translational applications and AI education efforts.
The mission of the UC Davis AI Center in Engineering is to build transformative collaboration on AI efforts within the college, across the UC Davis campus, and with industry partners, policymakers and the community to leverage AI for the betterment of humanity and the planet.
Sign up for our listserv to receive the latest news, events and updates from the AI Center in Engineering.
Research Areas
Our faculty experts are working to explore and enhance AI in 10 key research areas.
Click the research area titles below to meet our experts in these areas.
Foundations of AI | AI and Agriculture | AI and Climate | AI and Education | AI and Energy | AI and Health
AI and Mobility | AI and Robotics, Sensors & HCI | AI and Society | Hardware & Software Engineering for AI
ECS 011 — Artificial Intelligence for All
Comprehensive introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) and its multifaceted applications. Foundational understanding of modern AI to enable effective communication about its functions, recognition of its applications, and awareness of its core principles. Ethical and societal implications of AI.
Research Resources and Funding Opportunities
Open calls for funding from Open Philanthropy Foundation
Interested faculty are encouraged to contact Jennifer Prahl (jlprahl@ucdavis.edu) for assistance.
- Request for Proposals: Improving Capability Evaluations
- Addresses major challenges to the field of AI capability evaluation by building GCR-relevant benchmarks, advancing the science of evaluations, or improving third-party access infrastructure. Applications due April 1, 2025.
- Request for Proposals: Technical AI Safety Research
- Make AI systems more trustworthy, rule-following, and aligned, even as they become more capable. Applications due April 15, 2025.
- Open Philanthropy Course Development Grants
- Applications assessed on a rolling basis.
- Career development and transition funding
- Individual application from undergraduate, postdoc and faculty are eligible as well as non academics in the corporate sector. Applications assessed on a rolling basis.
- How to apply for funding
- Funding capacity-building projects aimed at addressing risks from advanced AI. Various deadlines.
Other Opportunities
- Google PhD Fellowship Program
- This program supports exceptional PhD students in computer science and related fields, providing a Google Research Mentor. We welcome applications in areas including Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Machine Perception, and Quantum Computing, among others. Applications close on May 15th, 2025. Learn more and apply at goo.gle/phdfellowship.
- NSF 23-506: Expanding AI Innovation through Capacity Building and Partnerships (ExpandAI)
- Upcoming application submission windows include March 11 - June 23, 2025, and June 24 - October 17, 2025.
- NSF Access (compute resources, storage resources, cloud resources, science getaways, etc.)
- ACCESS is a program established and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation to help researchers and educators, with or without supporting grants, to utilize the nation’s advanced computing systems and services – at no cost to you.
- NAIRR Pilot
- The NAIRR Pilot aims to connect U.S. researchers and educators to computational, data, and training resources needed to advance AI research and research that employs AI.
- "Data Science and AI" curated funding opp on Pivot
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
CourseAssist AI
A customizable student-developed chatbot that is trained solely on a course's materials. To use, an instructor simply uploads things pertaining to the course, clicks a button to train the AI, and it's ready to use. Students are sent a link to their course's personalized chatbot.
Aizip
Based in Silicon Valley, Aizip is a leader in model design of AI for IoT (AIoT). With its breakthrough neural network architecture and proprietary automated design tools, Aizip has demonstrated a wide range of deep neural networks (DNN) with superior performance.
AAAS Elects Raissa D’Souza as Fellow
Chen-Nee Chuah Named Co-Director of UC Davis AI Center in Engineering
Targeting Next-Gen Food Systems with AI-Powered Nutrition
Blog: Democratizing Artificial Intelligence with the AI Student Collective
Visualizing and Communicating Ambiguity for High-Stakes Collaboration
With AI, a New “Metabolic Watchdog” Takes Diabetes Care from Burden to Balance
Leadership
Are you doing unique or collaborative research in AI? Do you want to connect with one of our experts? Email us at coe-ai@ucdavis.edu.
Dipak Ghosal, Acting Co-Director
Bucher Family Chair and Professor of Computer Science
Prem Chand Jain Family Presidential Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Faculty Advisory Board
- Shirley Ahn, Chemical Engineering
- Sharon Aviran, Biomedical Engineering
- Yubei Chen, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Ian Davidson, Computer Science
- Mason Earles, Biological and Agricultural Engineering
- Vladimir Filkov, Computer Science
- Sanjay Joshi, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
- Marina Leite, Materials Science and Engineering
- Natarajan Sukumar (Suku), Civil and Enviornmental Engineering
- Junshan Zhang, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Engineering a better world calls for solutions of a different caliber, demanding innovation across disciplines using a design-centric approach.
We employ and develop intelligent systems and automation, tools at the nano-and-micro- scales and engineering for all that will revolutionize energy systems, strengthen climate resilience, advance human health and transform mobility to bring a sustainable, healthier and more resilient world within reach.
