Human First, AI Second: Stony Brook Honors Students Put Innovation to Work

Stony Brook University's second annual Honors Innovation Challenge, held October 30 at the Bauman Center, brought together 53 students who developed projects that could improve their communities. Photos by John Griffin.

Finding time to buy groceries isn't always easy for Stony Brook University students Yunning Mao and Eunsoo Lee. Both are first-year engineering majors in the Honors College, and a trip to the supermarket means finding time for a bus ride between assignments.

"Both of us have been thinking about this every single time we go eat," Mao said.

Their idea? Bring fresh produce to campus.

Mao, a biomedical engineering major, and Lee, an electrical engineering major, proposed a mobile market that would partner with local farmers or grocery retailers to sell fresh food at Stony Brook. AI could help analyze student surveys, anticipate demand and determine what vendors should stock.

Their proposal was one of 14 developed during Stony Brook's second annual Honors Innovation Challenge, held October 30 at the Bauman Center. The event brought together 53 students, more than last year's inaugural challenge, to explore how AI and human creativity could improve their communities.

Participants represented the Honors College, University Scholars, WISE and Yardi Scholars, along with students pursuing departmental honors in engineering.

"How can we use our unique human qualities, such as empathy, communication and experience to create better solutions?" asked Catherine Sherman, assistant dean for University Honors Programs, as she welcomed participants.

Sherman encouraged students to look beyond the competition itself.

"Positive change requires action. It also requires active participation, of showing up, which you all have done by gathering this morning," she said.

The students had one day to develop their ideas and prepare a two-minute pitch. Dominique Lee, a strategist, researcher and experience designer who helped organize the event, opened her workshop with a question inspired by Samantha Harvey's novel Orbital: If robots can explore space without needing food, oxygen or sleep, why send humans?

The question invited students to consider what people contribute that technology cannot replace.

"Human first. AI second," Lee told them. "Use AI to help you research, challenge your thinking and build things. But don't let it do all the thinking for you."

Timothy Chen, a first-year accounting major and Yardi Scholar, was thinking about a problem he'd encountered while trying to find people to play badminton and basketball.

"I used to struggle with that, but now I text, 'Oh, hey, what's up? Do you want to play?'" Chen said.

He and his teammates proposed an app, or an addition to the university's CampusGroups platform, that would use AI to connect students interested in playing the same sports at compatible times. Chen said the tool could be especially helpful for students who find it intimidating to approach people they don't know.

Other students tackled more serious challenges.

Jeffrey Zhang, a sophomore physics major, and Julian Choi, a sophomore studying physics and mathematics, both in University Scholars, were developing a concept to help people experiencing domestic violence or human trafficking discreetly request assistance.

Their approach uses steganography, a technique for concealing information within ordinary images or audio files. AI could help encode a message that a trusted recipient could then decode.

"If you have an image or an audio file, you can encode a secret message," Choi explained. "They could send it to their friends and then their friend would decode the message using AI on their app as well."

The idea was still in its early stages, with questions remaining about accessibility and whether the method could be used safely by someone in danger.

Zhang and Choi participated in last year's challenge, when their team explored smoking on campus by observing and interviewing students.

"I think that was probably my favorite part of last year's competition," Choi said of those conversations.

Carl W. Lejuez, Stony Brook executive vice president and provost, said the challenge gives students an opportunity to pursue ideas beyond their coursework.

"Stony Brook students are endlessly creative and eager to use their curiosity to solve problems in their communities," Lejuez said. "Programs like the Honors Innovation Challenge bring students together across disciplines and connect them with mentors who can help them turn their entrepreneurial ideas into concepts that they can continue to explore and develop now at Stony Brook and after graduation, if they choose."

Throughout the day, students received feedback from 10 mentors representing medicine, technology, entrepreneurship, research, design and communication.

The mentors were Adam DeRosa, assistant vice president for intellectual property and commercial partnerships; Leah Gancz, an emergency medicine physician and clinical informatics fellow; Leana Grotz, director of Makerspace; Jeannie Guglielmo, chair of the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences; and Luis Lamb, special advisor for AI engagement at the AI Innovation Institute.

They were joined by Nicole Leavey, associate director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science; Virginia Linzee, creative consultant; David Noble, strategic advisor to the provost; Leslie Powers, business advisor at the Long Island Small Business Development Center; and Tauhid Mahmud, a family and preventive medicine physician and clinical informatics fellow.

By afternoon, the teams were presenting their ideas to six judges: Jennifer Adams, director of innovation at Stony Brook University Libraries; Jon Longtin, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Jessica Dale, industry design leader and coach; Ete Chan, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering; Babak Hemmatian, research associate at the AI Innovation Institute; and Mathew Tharakan, chief medical information officer at Stony Brook University Hospital.

Each team had two minutes to explain its idea, followed by a question from the judges, who considered the problem, proposed solution and potential impact.

Three teams received dining dollars for projects addressing campus challenges.

WolfieXchange, a proposed platform for trading dining dollars, was developed by University Scholars Danny Chen, a computer science major; Damien Yau and Robbie Torres, both psychology majors; and Anthony Alters, a mechanical engineering major, along with Jerry Wang, an applied mathematics and statistics major in the Honors College.

A parking lot occupancy app designed to help students find available spaces was proposed by University Scholars Ken Weng, a computer science major, and Anthony Barone, a chemistry major; Sebastian Sola, an electrical engineering major in Engineering Honors; and WISE students Nicole Alvarado-Diaz, Tina Lin and Lynn Huang, all computer science majors.

Campus Study Buddy, an app for locating available campus study locations, was developed by Zurabi Kochiashvili, a computer science major in University Scholars, and WISE students Juee Kotwal and Malika Salehmohamed, both biology majors.

The event was supported by the Office of the Provost and organized with the help of Fabio Ribeiro, manager of operations in University Honors Programs, and Lee.

Lamb, who spent the day advising students, saw possibilities extending beyond the competition. "What I see are brilliant students with great ideas," he said. "And they are very eager to learn how to transform their knowledge and transform their motivation into something tangible that can be used by the community, by the students."

- Beth Squire