Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy

Spring 2025 Virtual Career Fair/Meet & Greet
2025-03-07 10:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Virtual
For Urban Planning, Public Informatics, and Public Policy graduate and undergraduate students.
Engage with Bloustein alumni and employer partners who are seeking interns or full time employees now or in the future. Learn more about their careers and organizations in which they represent. This is a terrific VIRTUAL networking opportunity.
RSVP NOW

People, Policy, Planning, Place and Product: Lessons from a City Planner
2025-03-11 16:00 - 17:00 | Bloustein School, Civic Square Building, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
ANNUAL DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION AND BELONGING LECTURE
Presented by Christopher A. Watson, M.Sc., Ph.D.[c] Director of Planning and Development Services, Murphy Schiller & Wilkes LLP
Planning as a tool is ideally to organize the physical environment to effectuate the life course of residents, so that they can be triangled with the resources needed to live successful life courses. Often, whoever gets to make the decision as to how space is organize determines the outcome for those residents, enveloped in those planned areas. To better provide the support residents need to advance themselves, personal agency aside, planners must be able to be the best translators of residents’ voices within planning principles that forward an agenda that is inclusive of community voice. Without this key understanding in practice, space is disorganized, and the evolution of society is stymied by confusion.
This conversation will explore these themes and will allow us as planners to have an honest conversation as to what our mandates are, how we practice these mandates, and how we come together to organize space around who we are planning for. Planning for people should include their voices, and this lecture is to provoke a conversation as to how we get to this realization in our practices.

RESCHEDULED: Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute: Climate, Energy and AI Convergence Café
2025-04-03 10:00 - 14:00 | The Rutgers Club, 85 Avenue E, Piscataway, 08854, United States
This Convergence Café looks to bring together RCEI affiliate scholars and other full-time Rutgers faculty and staff to mobilize interdisciplinary teams focused on the intersection of AI/ML and the RCEI Focus Areas.
This event is for you if you are:
• Interested in learning how other Rutgers scholars incorporate AI/ML into their work.
• Searching for a collaborator to team with for research funding.
• Looking to increase your chances of success within highly competitive programs.
• In need of planning funds to get your project off the ground.

This Convergence Café will consist of plenary talks, lightning talks associated with common methodologythemes (data processing, pattern recognition, process optimization/automation, object detection/classification, projection/prediction models), and networking sessions centered on broad themes within the nexus of Climate, Energy and AI.

RSVP by March 30.

Please register again even if you previously signed up for the February event.

For more information, visit https://rcei.rutgers.edu/about/convergence-cafes/

REACH Poverty, Equity, and their Influencing Factors Symposium
2025-04-09 09:00 - 16:00 | Cook Campus Center, 59 Biel Road, New Brunswick, 08901
This symposium, hosted by REACH in partnership with our Employment Table, will bring together the Rutgers community, academic institutions, community partners, policymakers, and funders to discuss poverty and its interconnected social determinants — including education, employment, food access, housing, population health, and racial justice.
We are especially thrilled to feature Dr. Matthew Desmond as our keynote speaker. Dr. Desmond, author of Poverty, By America and founder of Princeton’s Eviction Lab, is a leading voice on housing insecurity and poverty. His groundbreaking research and extensive work have shaped national conversations on these critical issues, making his insights invaluable for those dedicated to social impact.
Locations:
New Brunswick: Cook Student Center (host site)
Camden: Camden Campus Center (livestream + in-person events*)
Newark: Paul Robeson Campus Center (livestream + in-person events*)
*In-person events in Camden and Newark will include livestreams from New Brunswick of all plenary sessions and select breakouts, as well as facilitated discussions, networking, breakfast and lunch, and an autographed copy of Dr. Desmond’s book, Poverty, By America.
Registration has ended for this event. For more information visit https://reach.rutgers.edu/events

RAISE-25 - Our Future With AI: Utopian or Dystopian?
2025-04-11 08:30 - 12:30 | Gov. James J. Florio Special Events Forum, CSB, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
Informatics – Data Science – AI Competition
Step into the future of innovation! RAISE-25 will challenge you to unravel the scope of AI’s impact on our lives and human society. RAISE-25, a novel Informatics – Advanced Data Science – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Competition, provides an opportunity to unleash your problem-solving prowess to tackle one of the most defining questions of our time: What will our AI-powered future look like? RAISE-25 invites all young geniuses to explore this time-sensitive and critical theme: Will AI shape our future into a utopian or dystopian reality?
Graduate and undergraduate students – Dive into real-world data and explore how AI is transforming education, reshaping careers, and redefining society as we know it. Whether you’re eager to showcase your skills or spark bold insights, this is your chance to lead the conversation on humanity’s AI-powered future. With total prizes of up to $17,000 to be WON, this is your chance to showcase your informatics, advanced data science, analytics, and AI-driven problem-solving brilliance!
RAISE-25 Student Informatics, Data Science, and AI Competition Overview

RAISE (Rethinking AI for Shared Empowerment), a virtual AI Lab, presents another challenge on human-AI interaction: RAISE-25!
The RAISE-25 competition is titled “Our Future with AI: Utopian or Dystopian?” and seeks to uncover key themes emerging from news headlines on the promises and challenges of AI in shaping our future in 3 key areas: education, jobs and careers, and societal change.
RAISE-25 is a great opportunity for talented students to showcase their informatics, advanced data science, analytics, and AI.
Hosted by Rutgers Bloustein School’s Master of Public Informatics (MPI) program
Join us on LinkedIn for more updates and insights

Registration
RAISE-25 registrations are now closed.
Please join our LinkedIn forum for all updates on RAISE-25, RAISE-26, research, job openings, other future events, etc. https://go.rutgers.edu/rutgersinfx
Important Dates

Team registration deadline: Closed
ONLINE submission deadline: February 16, 2025
Finalists announced: March 10, 2025
Finalists only – In-person finals at the Bloustein School, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ: April 11, 2025

Eligibility

Teams of 2-5 members can register for either the undergraduate or graduate track by signing up through the registration form. Teams must then reply to the RAISE-25 team’s subsequent confirmation email to formally join the competition
The competition is open to currently enrolled undergraduate and graduate students from accredited US institutions
Participants must legally reside in the US for the entire duration of the competition

Prizes and Awards

First Prize (one per track): Up to $5,000 per team
Second Prize (up to two per track): Up to $1,750 per team

Review the RAISE-25 Terms and Conditions
Judging Criteria

Submissions will be evaluated based on overall excellence, creativity, breadth of analysis, depth of exploratory analytics, application of NLP and text informatics methods, LLM-based approaches, originality of the analytical approach, clarity, ethical considerations, and recommendations
Judges’ decisions are final and binding, with no provision for appeals or review

Competition Guidelines and Details*
The RAISE-25 competition invites participants to explore the theme “Our Future with AI: Utopian or Dystopian?” by analyzing and uncovering dominant themes in AI’s role in shaping our future. Participants will examine how AI influences education, jobs and careers, and society, from its utopian potential to empower and innovate to dystopian challenges and ethical dilemmas.

Analyze news headlines, generate insights, assess ethics, and make recommendations for shared empowerment.
Any/all of these could be addressed or used: Embedded topics and themes, Sentiment Analysis, emotion recognition, Abstractive and extractive summaries, Machine learning methods, rules-based and synthetic approaches, Use of Large Language Models and derivate tools, applications, and code modules, Use of exploratory methods for textual informatics, data visualization, Other AI methods.
Participants will be expected to use informatics, data science, analytics, and AI-based approaches to discover dominant and hidden themes from the dataset.
Participants may use exploratory analyses, data visualizations, statistics, computational linguistics, quantitative modeling, machine learning, or other analytical methods.
Each team is free to define its strategy – teams can also use LLMs and tools like Claude, Bard, or ChatGPT. However, the use of any AI tool/s MUST be explicitly declared along with a list of prompts submitted as an appendix. Any use of AI without explicit declaration of specific prompts is disallowed. References for all sources must be cited using APA 6 or higher.
Tools and languages allowed: Python – Colab or Jupyter Notebooks only, R – .R or .RMD only, Tableau, Excel, For any other tool – please confirm with the organizers
Shortlisted finalists will be provided with additional instructions and invited to attend (required) the final round of the competition to be held on April 11, 2025, at Rutgers University.

* Review the RAISE-25 Terms and Conditions
Information Sessions
Virtual information sessions will be hosted to provide information and guidance on the competition structure, materials, schedule, and expectations. All sessions will cover the same topics and will be followed by an open Q&A. All instructions will be provided in the documentation which will be shared with registered participants. However, due to the large number of participating student teams from all over the US, it is advisable to attend one of these sessions as it may be difficult to respond to all emails promptly with the required clarity. Please register and attend at least one of the sessions below.

Session 1: Jan 8, Wednesday – 12 PM EST
Session 2: Jan 24, Friday – 12 PM EST
Session 3: Feb 7, Friday – 12 PM EST

RSVP through this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/LMABOC9FS1K1g5AHfYilLQ
Note: Once registered, you can attend any of the sessions. Ignore the dates suggested by Zoom – add only the 3 dates mentioned in this email to your calendars.
About the Hosts
The Bloustein School’s Master of Public Informatics is a distinguished program for educating highly talented professional student cohorts in the competencies needed in public informatics, advanced data science, and analytics, which includes topics such as machine learning, global data analytics, artificial intelligence, textual analytics and natural language processing, statistics, programming, data management, GIS, visualization, spatial analysis, domain applications, and the application of these skills for domain-specific value creation. The MPI program at Rutgers provides excellent state-of-the-art research-driven project opportunities. Graduates of the MPI program will provide a deep understanding of advanced data science and analytics methods, context, and public benefit perspectives in this fast-growing and high-demand domain.
Interested in sponsorships? Contact our team: informatics@ejb.rutgers.edu
Contact Us
RAISE-25 Coordinator: Julia Esguerra
Graduate Teams Coordinator: Esha More
Undergraduate Teams Coordinator: Mansi Asher
Please use this email for all correspondence: informatics@ejb.rutgers.edu
RAISE-25 CHAIR: Prof. Jim Samuel
Code of Conduct
Participants must adhere to a strict code of ethical conduct, and agree to abide by all the rules and requirements of Bloustein, Rutgers, and the State of New Jersey.
Please review the RAISE-25 Terms and Conditions that apply to all participants.
Updates and Changes
Rutgers University and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy reserve the right to modify the competition rules, schedule, or any other aspect of the competition. Registered participants will be notified of such changes via email.

Registration Form

RAISE-25 AI's Impact on Data Science & Informatics Careers
2025-04-11 13:30 - 14:30 | Gov. James J. Florio Special Events Forum, CSB, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
Join us for an exciting panel discussion exploring the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on data science and informatics careers and job search. Industry leaders and experts will share insights on how AI is reshaping job roles, what skills are in demand, and how professionals can stay ahead in this evolving landscape.
Panelists:
Cory Yemen, Poonam Soans, Balaji Dhamodharan, Udayan Bose, Karun Thankachan, Madhumitha Karthikeyan, Jim Samuel
Register: go.rutgers.edu/RAISE-25-panel

Bloustein Research Day 2025
2025-04-15 08:00 - 12:30 | Gov. James J. Florio Special Events Forum, CSB, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
It’s time to catch up on the wonderful research our faculty, staff, and student colleagues have performed over the past year. Bloustein School faculty and staff will present lightning talks followed by a poster session by graduate and undergraduate students.
This will be an in-person event. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Register to attend by visiting: go.rutgers.edu/researchday25
Agenda:
8:00 – 9:00 am Continental Breakfast
9:00 – 10:15 am Lightning Talks
Faculty and staff will give 5-minute lightning talks about their research.
10:15 – 11:30 am Poster Session with Light Refreshments
Graduate and undergraduate students will present posters. A best poster award will be given.
LIGHTNING TALK PRESENTATIONS AND POSTER PRESENTERS/TOPICS
11:30 – 12:30 pm Keynote Address by Gregory Shill, JD, Professor of Law at the University of Iowa
Professor Shill will offer remarks on how applied and policy relevant research can influence transportation policymaking processes and the law. Dr. Shill’s keynote is sponsored by the New Jersey State Policy Lab.
Organizing Committee: Clint Andrews, Liz Cooner, Anita Franzione, David Listokin, Will Payne

Listening Session with Dean Stuart Shapiro
2025-05-01 16:30 - 17:30 | Bloustein School, Civic Square Building, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
Bloustein School students are invited to an open forum with Bloustein School Dean Stuart Shapiro to hear your thoughts on challenges facing higher education in today’s national climate.

Bloustein School Convocation 2025
2025-05-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Jersey Mike’s Arena, 83 Rockefeller Road, Piscataway, NJ, United States
The formal Bloustein School Convocation ceremony will recognize each graduate individually with pomp and circumstance. Students will cross the stage and have their names read as they are recognized.
Important note: GRADUATE students with August 2024, October 2024, January 2025, May 2025 and August 2025 degree dates, and UNDERGRADUATE students with January 2025, May 2025, and August 2025 are invited to participate in the school convocation.
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT. Visit our website for more information about the Bloustein School Convocation
This event will also be livestreamed. Join us on Facebook Live (no account needed) at https://go.rutgers.edu/ruejb2025. The stream will start at approximately 9:50 a.m. and the procession of graduates will begin at 10:00 a.m. Please be aware that some music, including Pomp & Circumstance, may be blocked due to copyright

Basic Quantitative Methods Placement Exam
2025-08-28 09:00 - 12:00 | Bloustein School, Civic Square Building, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
To register: Email Shiyu Ma at sm2758 [at] scarletmail.rutgers.edu by 5pm on August 21, 2025.
This closed-book exam is similar to the final exam for the Basic Quantitative Methods course. The exam will cover all chapters of the book listed below. You will need a non-graphing calculator and pen or pencil.
To prepare: Joseph F. Healey. Statistics: A Tool for Social Research. Wadsworth Cengage Learning 10th edition (or subsequent editions) . Please be advised that you need an active Rutgers Box Account to view the above link.
Exam format:

multiple choice and short answer questions that test your understanding of concepts, and
computational problems and interpretation of statistical output from STATA. Familiarity with any statistical software package should be sufficient to interpret the output.

At exam time, you will receive statistical tables (appendices A, B, C, and D from the 10th edition of the textbook) as well as a formula sheet with the formulas from the inside front cover of the textbook.

Intelligent Informatics @ Bloustein: AI AGENTS to the Rescue!? An Overview of the Opportunities, Risks and Economics of Agentic AI
2025-09-15 18:00 - 19:15 | Virtual
Rutgers Informatics Forum on Agentic Artificial Intelligence
This webinar will host an eminent expert on agentic AI, and will also provide insights into the advanced data science, informatics and AI education, and preparation needed for informatics, DS and AI jobs and careers.
Justin Trugman is Cofounder and Head of Technology at BetterFutureLabs, a venture studio focused on Multi-Agent Systems and the future of work. He was VP of Software Development and an early engineer at Caregility, worked at Google X’s Project Loon, and co-founded BlinkCDN and the non-profit SecureMeeting.
Facilitator: Professor Jim Samuel, Ph.D., Bloustein School, Rutgers University
PROGRAM

6:00 PM – Welcome and opening comments.
6:05 PM – Agentic AI Overview, Justin Trugman, Cofounder, Head of Technology, BetterFutureLabs

6:55 PM – MPI Studio on AI Agents and Generative AI, Prof. Samuel, Bloustein, Rutgers

7:00 PM – Career Discussion and Q&A on Agentic AI

Hosted by the Master of Public Informatics (MPI) program at Rutgers University
Special Thanks to our Collaborators:
Public Informatics Student Group, Journal of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, New Jersey Big Data Alliance, and The Rutgers Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (RAD) Collaboratory
REGISTER AT go.rutgers.edu/informaticsF25
Questions? Email informatics@ejb.rutgers.edu. Join the Intelligent Informatics forum on LinkedIn https://go.rutgers.edu/rutgersinfx

2025 Rutgers Robotics Workshop
2025-10-10 08:30 - 17:30 | Bloustein School, Civic Square Building, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
Please join us for the 5th annual Rutgers Robotics Workshop.
The workshop is held annually as part of the NSF National Research Traineeship SOCRATES (Socially Cognizant Robotics for a Technology-Enhanced Society) at Rutgers. It brings together faculty, students, and industry representatives and will feature both internal and external speakers, with a full day of invited talks, poster sessions, lightning talks, and demonstrations. Students will also present their robotics research during a dedicated poster session. A special alumni session will showcase lightning talks from graduates working across industries ranging from healthcare to venture capital. Several AI startups founded by Rutgers alumni will also be highlighted
The workshop is free. Registration is required at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rutgers-robotics-workshop-2025-tickets-1367545087169?aff=oddtdtcreator
Robotics Workshop Agenda:
8:30 – 9:00 Check – in 9:00 – 9:30 Introduction
9:30 – 10:30 Plenary Speaker, Dhruv Shah, Princeton University
10:30 – 10:45 Poster Spotlight Talks
10:45 – 11:45 Coffee break & Poster Session
11:45 – 12:30 SOCRATES Faculty Lightning Talks: Socially Cognizant Robotics in Action
Clinton Andrews, Kristin Dana, Kostas Bekris, Pernille Hemmer, Matthew Stone, Jacob Feldman
12:30 – 1:30 Networking Lunch
1:30 – 2:30 Industry/Alumni Lightning Talks: AI in industry
2:30 – 3:30 Student Talks (NRT fellows/trainees)
3:30 – 4:00 Keynote Speaker, Gabriela Oana Cula, Janssen Pharmaceutical
4:00 – 4:15 Walkover to Spring Street
4:15 – 5:00 Robot Demonstrations
5:00 – 5:30 Industry Consortium Discussion
For more information, visit https://robotics.rutgers.edu/#workshop

Careers: Planning, Policy, & Informatics Career Fair--In Person
2025-10-24 10:00 - 13:00 | Bloustein School, Civic Square Building, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
For Urban Planning, Public Informatics, and Public Policy students. Engage with Bloustein alumni and employer partners who are seeking interns or full-time employees now or in the future. Learn more about their careers and the organizations in which they represent.
Registration coming soon!

Careers: Planning, Policy, & Informatics Career Fair--Virtual
2025-10-30 16:00 - 18:00 | Virtual

New Jersey Big Data Alliance Research Collaboration Forum
2025-11-07 08:30 - 14:30 | Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine Proteomics Building, 174 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, 08854
This event includes participation from leading Universities and educational institutions in NJ, and government and industry.
We’re thrilled to announce our keynote speakers:

Welcome: Professor Stephen K. Burley, President, NJBDA
Morning Keynote: Professor Dimitris Metaxas, Rutgers University
Final Keynote: Aaron Price, CEO, TechUnited

The theme for this Forum is Advancing AI Research, and this is a great opportunity to:

Present your latest or upcoming research through Lightning Talks – Signup Now!*
Lead a Research Round Table during the AI & Data Science Lunch – Signup Now!*
Connect and collaborate with peers across academia and industry
Learn about new grants and funding opportunities
Publish your research with JBDAI Journal: https://jbdai.org/

LEARN MORE: go.rutgers.edu/njbda
Please note that priority registration closes on October 14, 2025 – and seats are limited!
* Selected lightning talks (5 minutes each) and lunch table hosts will be informed via email by around 10/21/25. Presentation slides will be due by 10/31/2025.

HOSTS:

Professor Stephen K. Burley, President @ NJBDA; Interim Director, Rutgers Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (RAD) Collaboratory
Professor Jim Samuel, Vice-President – Research @ NJBDA; Director, Master of Public Informatics, Bloustein School, Rutgers University

In Collaboration with:
Rutgers Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (RAD) Collaboratory & Public Informatics @ Bloustein School, Rutgers University
https://radcollaboratory.rutgers.edu/
https://informatics.rutgers.edu/

Civic Engagement in an Era of Artificial Intelligence
2025-12-02 16:00 - 17:30 | Virtual
Renée Sieber is an associate professor at McGill University. Since she graduated from the Bloustein School, she has investigated the intersection of civic empowerment and computational technologies. She is best known for her research and practice on public participation geographic information systems and also has conducted research on participatory climate modeling. She currently researches civic engagement related to artificial intelligence. She co-hosts the monthly Al in Canadian Municipalities Community of Practice, now in its sixth year, where cities exchange best practices on Al use. She has collaborated
with numerous federal agencies and organizations in Canada on Al policy. She has advised on the design of two Al risk assessment tools and served on the IEEE working group on Al procurement. She sits on the executive boards of GIScience and Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management.
Artificial intelligence is sold as a miraculous cure to many of the ills of cities, one of which is a lack of civic (local) engagement. Al can summarize and translate civic participation and even synthesize participants if desired. Add to that, cities may be reluctant to engage citizens on Al-its deployment, impacts, and overall policy-because engagement supposedly slows Al adoption and because the tech contains all these contradictions. It’s opaque and can only be understood by data scientists. But it seems effortless to use, with chatbots and software libraries. Humans can and should be in the loop but autonomous agents will save cities time and money. On top of all of that, Al, especially generative Al, exerts an enormous impact on people’s lives so citizens should be involved. But governments exist in a FOMO (fear of missing out) world, where they feel the need to optimize with Al, less they miss their competitive advantage. This lecture will discuss these challenges and explore numerous ways that citizens can engage with cities on Al. It will also cover the dark side of Al with regard to civic engagement.
This talk draws on Dr. Sieber’s research at the intersection of tech and civic engagement. This interest developed in her dissertation with PhD supervisor Lyna Wiggins, who emphasized local adoption by planners of GIS, which at the time was hard! Throughout her career, she has been driven to investigate the potential for civic engagement using hard tech, especially as the discourse moves towards tech as the engine of innovation, for example in smart cities. In this she will draw on her six years co-hosting Al in Canadian Municipalities Community of Practice as well as 20+ years researching public participation GIS.
RSVP AT go.rutgers.edu/meck2025
***************
The Stuart Meck Distinguished Speaker Series on Land Use Law and Affordable Housing was established in 2018 by the family of the late Stuart Meck, Associate Research Professor and director of the Center for Planning Practice at the Bloustein School, and a professional planner for more than 45 years. The series highlights experts and practitioners of planning and policy development, offering diverse insight into topics under public and academic debate. This year’s lecture is dedicated to the memory of Lyna L. Wiggins, a longtime professor and program director in Rutgers’ urban planning program who retired in 2019 and passed away in November 2024. A pioneer in Geographic Information Sciences (GIS), Lyna taught its intricacies to generations of students at the Bloustein School. Most currently practicing planners in New Jersey took one of her courses. All are invited to join us in honoring her memory.

Careers: Planning, Policy, & Informatics Career Fair--Virtual
2026-02-27 10:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
For Urban Planning, Public Informatics, and Public Policy students. Connect with employers and alumni at this career fair design for meaningful conversations and networking. Discover internship and full-time opportunities, explore diverse career paths, and establish professional connections in a welcoming, low-pressure environment.
Registration link sent via email by Bloustein Career Services!

Bloustein Research Day 2026
2026-04-03 09:00 - 12:00 | Gov. James J. Florio Special Events Forum, CSB, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
It’s time to catch up on the wonderful research our faculty, staff, and student colleagues have performed over the past year. Bloustein School faculty and staff will present lightning talks followed by a poster session by graduate and undergraduate students.
This will be an in-person event. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Register to attend by visiting: go.rutgers.edu/researchday26
Agenda:
8:00 – 9:00 am Continental Breakfast
9:00 – 10:15 am Lightning Talks
Faculty and staff will give 5-minute lightning talks about their research.
10:15 – 11:30 am Poster Session with Light Refreshments
Graduate and undergraduate students will present posters. A best poster award will be given.
LIGHTNING TALK PRESENTATIONS AND POSTER PRESENTERS/TOPICS
11:30 – 12:30 pm Closing Panel: AI and the Future of Research
A cross-disciplinary faculty panel on the growing role of AI in scholarly research.
Panelists
Jim Samuel, Ph.D. Director, MPI Programs, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy
Lauren M.E. Goodlad, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature; Chair, Critical AI @ Rutgers; Editor, Critical AI
Robert Wolfe, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Information Science, School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University
Organizing Committee: Clint Andrews

RAISE-26 Artificial Intelligence - Informatics - Data Science AI Competition
2026-04-17 08:30 - 12:30 | Gov. James J. Florio Special Events Forum, CSB, 33 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, United States
RAISE-26 Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Informatics – Data Science Competition
Mirror Mirror on the Wall – Is AI Transforming Us All? Exploring AI’s Impact on Human Behavior
RAISE-26, the world’s strongest AI-NLP competition, invites undergraduate and graduate students from all disciplines to explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: Is artificial intelligence (AI) transforming us? This cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence – Informatics – DS Competition from the MPI program at the Bloustein School, Rutgers University, challenges participants to investigate how AI is shaping human behavior.
Find out more about the competition and register:
RAISE-26 Website
For all news and latest updates, please follow us on Public Informatics @ Rutgers University
