Faculty members in the Department of Computing Sciences maintained active momentum throughout the summer break, advancing research, securing competitive external grant funding, presenting at international conferences, and spearheading regional educational initiatives. Their accomplishments highlight the department's sustained commitment to academic excellence, student mentorship, and community engagement.
Dr. Ahmed Bensaoud secured multiple major grant awards and research opportunities heading into the upcoming academic year. He was awarded a 2026 to 2027 Coffin Grant, received funding from the Connecticut AI Alliance, and was selected to participate in the UR2PhD Undergraduate Research Program. On the international stage, Dr. Bensaoud is serving as Editorial Chair for the 4th International Conference on Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Multidisciplinary Applications, which convenes in L'Aquila, Italy, from September 9 to 11, 2026. In recognition of his leadership, the Associate Provost invited him to serve as the faculty advisor for Alpha Lambda Delta, the university wide honor society for first and second year students.
Dr. Mingjun Li shared innovative teaching methods on a national stage by attending the Lilly Conference in North Carolina, where he presented his work titled "AI Enhanced Educational Digital Escape Rooms for Active Learning". In addition to his pedagogical contributions, Dr. Li expanded his editorial leadership after being invited to serve as lead guest editor for a special issue of Frontiers in Computer Science. Under his leadership, the editorial team developed and launched the research topic titled "Trustworthy AI for Human Behavior Understanding and Security," which is currently available online.
Dr. Abusaleh Tayeen made meaningful advancements in cybersecurity research and graduate student research mentorship. In June 2026, he was awarded 9,000 dollars from the Connecticut AI Alliance AI Computing Access Program to support his ongoing research in network intrusion detection utilizing large language models. Dr. Tayeen also guided his graduate thesis student, Naina, who traveled to the 39th International FLAIRS Conference in May 2026 to present their accepted research paper, "Clinical Narratives Matter: Feature Level Fusion for Improving ICU Length of Stay Prediction."
Returning from sabbatical, professor Ingrid Russell engaged in significant international conference leadership and curriculum advocacy. In May 2026, she served as an organizer for the special track on Explainable, Fair, and Trustworthy AI at the 39th International FLAIRS Conference in Marco Island, Florida. Later in July, she traveled to the 31st Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, where she chaired the session dedicated to AI and machine learning education. Demonstrating her ongoing dedication to academic quality and curriculum standards, Prof. Russell also completed specialized training to become certified as an ABET program evaluator.
Department Chair Dr. Andrew Jung led impactful regional STEM outreach for local educators. From June 24, Dr. Jung hosted a three day professional development workshop at the University of Hartford titled "Empowering Connecticut's Classrooms: An IoT Smart Mirror Educator Training Initiative". Sponsored by the Infosys Foundation and conducted in partnership with the Connecticut Computer Science Teachers Association, the initiative brought ten Connecticut high school teachers to campus and concluded with high satisfaction and a 100 percent success rate. Additionally, Dr. Jung completed the ABET program evaluator training and officially began serving as a certified program evaluator in computing.