SCHUMER ANNOUNCES $10 MILLION FOR UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO TO ESTABLISH NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH CENTER TO INCREASE LITERACY RATES FOR STUDENTS IN WESTERN NY AND BEYOND
Schumer Says New Federally-Funded Center For Early Literacy And Responsible AI Will Help Students Improve Reading Skills Using Cutting-Edge AI Tools
Funding Builds On Senator’s Continued Efforts To Elevate UB As A Leader In AI After Bringing The NSF Director To Campus Earlier This Year & Securing $20M To Create New National AI Research Institute At UB
Schumer: UB Is Helping Power America’s AI Future!
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer announced that the University at Buffalo received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to establish a new Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI. The new research center will focus on harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform early literacy instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse learners in kindergarten through second-grade classrooms across the nation, including in Western NY.
“The University at Buffalo is a leader powering technological advancement and AI innovation related to improving education. Thanks to this $10 million in federal funding, UB can establish a new Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI to help kids in Western New York and beyond learn to read,” said Senator Schumer. “Earlier this year, I helped UB establish a new National AI Research Institute and open a new $20 million federally-funded National AI Institute for Exceptional Education to help children with disabilities learn to speak. That is on top of making the region a federal tech hub to build the area’s tech workforce. Now, UB can continue to use its top-notch AI research facilities to help the next generation grow and thrive and further position Upstate New York as a national hub for innovation.”
The Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI aims to address a critical need to improve beginning reading skills of students, with an emphasis on students from underrepresented and underserved communities. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 33% of fourth-graders achieved proficiency in reading comprehension in the U.S. in 2022, a shortfall predominantly affecting low-income, Black, Latinx, and other marginalized students.
“As our community in Western New York becomes more diverse, this $10 million grant will empower the University of Buffalo to conduct AI research that will address the literacy needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. The Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI (CELaRAI) will create an equal playing field for the next generation of children across the country, including at Buffalo Public Schools and Erie 1 BOCES schools. I applaud the University as it continues to lead in AI nationally,” said Congressman Tim Kennedy.
“This significant award from the Department of Education underscores UB’s longstanding national and international leadership in artificial intelligence,” said UB President Satish K. Tripathi. “In our Graduate School of Education and across disciplines, more than 200 faculty are leveraging the power of AI, all with the aim of contributing meaningfully to the greater good. By helping young learners thrive and setting them up for future success, we will transform the lives of children, families and communities in ways that transcend metrics. On behalf of our grateful scholarly community, I would like to thank Senate Majority Leader Schumer, a dedicated friend and champion of UB whose steadfast support of our university is enabling us to make a profound impact on the communities we serve.”
“This award reflects the Graduate School of Education’s commitment to utilizing evidence-based approaches to addressing some of the most vexing educational challenges we face,” said Suzanne Rosenblith, dean of UB’s Graduate School of Education. “Acknowledging that AI can be instrumental in improving foundational literacy skills could be a game-changer in how educators and schools approach early literacy instruction and support. I am also especially proud of the center’s focus on the responsible use of AI, a priority at UB. We are deeply indebted to the Institute of Education Sciences for its support and confidence in this project.”
“We believe that, with the right support, all students — regardless of their backgrounds — can succeed in literacy,” said Christine Wang, the grant’s principal investigator and professor of learning and instruction in UB’s Graduate School of Education. “Our goal is to create opportunities for all students, particularly those from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds whose educational needs are often not fully met by our education systems.”
Earlier this year, Schumer brought Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan, Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), to campus to cut the ribbon for the newly established, $20 million federally funded National AI Research Institute at the University at Buffalo (UB) and see first-hand how UB is leading the way on AI research. With the launch of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, UB is spurring critical innovation for transforming education for children with speech and language processing challenges. UB is using AI to enhance our understanding of children’s speech and language development in order to provide early screening for all children and individualized assistance to children facing speech and language challenges while helping to address educational and workforce development needs.
The senator said that the newly-announced Center will advance the next frontier of AI with cutting-edge AI research, securing for UB a leading role in developing the technologies of the future, growing the AI innovation economy in Western New York, supporting good-paying research jobs, and attracting further investments with a bolstered workforce to support new companies. Thanks to Schumer’s relentless advocacy and his CHIPS and Science Act, he secured the largest dollar increase in history for the NSF and helped deliver $20 million to establish the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institute at UB. In addition, UB has also been announced as the future home for NYS’s Empire AI initiative, a proposed $400 million consortium that will build a new AI computing center at UB to facilitate innovation, responsible research, and economic development, further positioning Upstate NY to be a leader in federal initiatives in AI that Schumer has been a leading advocate for, including the NSF’s National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot.
In addition, the senator said Upstate New York is not only advancing AI research and development, but manufacturing the chips that run AI, bringing jobs back from overseas, creating good-paying jobs for New Yorkers, and boosting the state’s economy. As part of the prestigious Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region Federal Tech Hub – which Schumer secured and delivered $40 million in implementation funding for earlier this year, Western NY will have investment for training a tech workforce and attracting the supply chain to further enhance Upstate NY’s semiconductor superhighway. Notably, the memory chips which Micron will be making in Syracuse are especially critical to AI development, along with the mature node chips GlobalFoundries makes in Malta and will be expanding production of to meet increased demand from industries like AI.
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