AIM is the Department of Computer Science's hub for artificial intelligence and machine learning — uniting faculty across pillars of excellence in trustworthy autonomous systems, scientific machine learning, and human-centered AI to address national priorities in health equity, scientific discovery, safe deployment, and societal impact.
The Center for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIM) unites faculty expertise across pillars of excellence — spanning trustworthy autonomous systems, scientific machine learning, human-centered AI, and high-performance computing — to drive discoveries that address national priorities.
By anchoring AI expertise within Computer Science and projecting it university-wide, AIM positions Texas State as a distinctive contributor to the national AI research ecosystem.
Beyond its core pillars, AIM extends its reach through seven External Collaboration Clusters that potentially cover the needs of hundreds of faculty across Texas State's colleges — fostering interdisciplinary research teams and elevating the university's competitive position for center-scale federal grants.
This structure creates a university-wide ecosystem for AI integration, targeting $10M+ in collaborative grants and addressing pressing societal challenges.
AIM's core research strengths within Computer Science. Each pillar is organized around a thematic area with demonstrated faculty depth, external funding, and national relevance. Faculty may contribute to more than one pillar where their expertise creates natural bridges.
Software engineering for AI, verifiable deep learning, secure cyber-physical systems, cognitive AI safety, robustness in deployment, multi-agent and robotic systems, motion planning, deep reinforcement learning for drones and vehicles, swarm intelligence, and physical AI.
Physics-informed ML, predictive, causal, and generative models for scientific discovery, surrogate modeling of multiphysics systems, AI–numerical methods fusion, representation learning, parallel and GPU optimizations, fault-tolerant large-scale ML training, and energy-efficient HPC.
Natural language processing, affect and emotion recognition, computer vision for human behavior, eye-tracking and biometrics, smart health and pervasive computing, AR/VR human-state assessment, wearable AI, and immersive media processing.
Expert systems, fuzzy logic, applied AI across domains, and long-standing international conference leadership (the IEA/AIE series, founded by Texas State faculty). This cross-cutting role provides historical depth, mentorship, and global visibility to all pillars — anchored by Dr. Moonis Ali's five decades in applied AI research.
* Dr. Chul-Ho Lee contributes to both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2.
Faculty outside Computer Science whose research can be enhanced through AI and machine learning. Organized thematically and aligned with AIM's pillars, these partnerships extend the center's impact university-wide — representative of over 1,000 faculty across seven colleges.
Natural sciences, engineering, and quantitative fields involving complex data modeling and simulation — supported by physics-informed ML, generative models, and HPC optimization.
DOE · NSFDiagnostics, behavioral health, and physiological monitoring — enhanced by multimodal AI, wearable ML, and generative AI for data synthesis.
NIH · NSF SCHHuman behavior, society, and policy — where AI aids data mining, sentiment analysis, network modeling, and ethical decision-making.
NSF SBE · NEHAnalytics, management, and economics — benefiting from AI in decision-making, NLP for business intelligence, and trustworthy AI systems.
NSF CISE · IndustryTeaching, leadership, and adult education — where AI enhances educational technology, personalized learning, and assessment.
NSF STEM Ed · DoEdSustainability, agriculture, and geography — benefiting from AI in remote sensing, climate modeling, and resource optimization.
USDA · EPACreative fields where AI supports digital media, immersive technology, and content analysis.
NEA · IndustryTogether these clusters represent hundreds of non-CS faculty with synergistic potential — targeting $10M+ in collaborative grants and interdisciplinary teams addressing societal challenges.
Texas State's AI portfolio — bolstered by the new MS in Artificial Intelligence, active NSF CAREER awards, NSF Smart and Connected Health grants, Department of Energy awards including the university's only DOE Early Career award, NAI recognitions, and HPC infrastructure — demonstrates critical mass across the center's pillars.
Pillar 3 offers a highly cohesive, fundable cluster as the center's flagship. Pillar 2 aligns directly with the Department of Energy's Genesis Mission for AI, HPC, and quantum integration. Pillar 1 consolidates trustworthy AI with autonomous systems, covering the full lifecycle from verification through real-world physical deployment.
To achieve national prominence, two to three strategic hires are recommended in areas such as foundation models and large language models, distributed ML, or ethical XR — positioning AIM for center-scale proposals including NSF AI Institute planning grants and NIH U-grants.
A selection of recent work from AIM faculty across all three pillars, in reverse-chronological order. This is a representative sample compiled from public sources; for each researcher's complete and current record, follow the Google Scholar links on the faculty page.
Compiled from publicly available sources (publisher pages, DBLP, and faculty websites). It is a representative selection rather than a complete bibliography, and some entries are abbreviated. Faculty not yet represented above — including Dr. Shibbir Ahmed, Dr. Tsz-Chiu Au, Dr. Aniruddha Bora, Dr. Mina Guirguis, Dr. Chul-Ho Lee, Dr. Veronica Perez-Rosas, Dr. Apan Qasem, Dr. Heena Rathore, Dr. Mylene Queiroz de Farias, Dr. Isayas Berhe Adhanom, Dr. Kecheng Yang, Dr. Ziliang Zong, and Dr. Moonis Ali — have active records reachable via their Google Scholar links on the faculty page.
Meet the faculty driving research across all three pillars and the foundational advisory role — with links to their Texas State profiles and current work.
View Faculty Directory