2026 AI Summit – Session Descriptions
Featured Sessions
Keynote
Kyle Bowen, Deputy CIO, Arizona State University
Auditorium, 2nd Floor
featured Plenary
Workforce 2030: The AI Skills Imperative
Beth Rugg, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Client Engagement and the Chief Workplace AI Officer
Auditorium, 2nd Floor
Let’s imagine the future. The workforce of 2030 will need a blend of technical, cognitive, and human-centered skills to thrive in an AI‑driven economy. The workforce of 2030 must understand AI literacy and collaboration, data-driven judgement, and creative AI-driven problem-solving. Together, these skills will not only boost productivity and innovation but most importantly, ensure that the human workforce remains adaptable, ethical, and indispensable in an AI-augmented economy.
Featured Panels
Insights from Students and Industry Experts
In Our Own Words – Student Perspectives on Navigating AI in Higher Education and Beyond
Auditorium, 2nd Floor
As Artificial Intelligence redefines the boundaries of the classroom and the workplace, those most impacted are the students navigating this new frontier in real-time. This compelling panel brings together a diverse group of UNC Charlotte students from across the disciplines—spanning computing, the arts, humanities, and education—to share their firsthand experiences with AI. Join Lily Ahdieh (CHESS), Scarleth Bonilla-Hernandez (COA&A), Eric Fackelman (CCI), and Gabe Perry (CHESS/COED) as they engage in a candid conversation about the reality of being a student in the age of AI.
Moderator
Premkumar Pugalenthi, Clinical Assistant Professor, COED
Panelists
Lily Ahdieh
Graduate Student
CHESS
Scarleth Bonilla-Hernandez
Undergraduate Student
COA&A
Eric Fackelman
Undergraduate Student, President of Charlotte AI Research Student Organization
CCI
Gabe Perry
Undergraduate Student
CHESS/COED
From Classroom to Career – Navigating AI Skills for the Next Generation Workforce
Auditorium, 2nd Floor
As AI transforms industries, what skills will the next generation workforce need to thrive? This dynamic panel brings together industry leaders to explore how AI is reshaping career pathways and what higher education must do to prepare students for success. Join Marcus Britt (Under Armour), Bhakti Liyanage (First Citizens Bank), Diego Torres (Microsoft), Richard Bowman (Nascar), and Kyle Bowen (Arizona State University), as they discuss emerging AI competencies, the evolving job market, and strategies for bridging the gap between classroom learning and real-world application.
Moderator
Patrick Madsen, Associate Dean for Advising & Experiential Learning and Executive Director of the Career Center, Office of Undergraduate Education
Panelists
Marcus Britt
Senior Manager, HR Tech and AI Advocate, McKinsey Certified Digital Strategist
Under Armour
Bhakti Liyanage
Senior Vice President, Enterprise Architect (Data & AI)
First Citizens Bank
Diego Torres
Managing Director, Cloud & AI Platform, Financial Services
Microsoft
Richard Bowman
AI Operations Specialist
Nascar
Kyle Bowen
Deputy CIO
Arizona State University
AI Across the Curriculum – Use Case Story Segments
Introducing the AI Faculty Use Case Stories Collection
Auditorium, 2nd Floor
Moderator:
Justin Cary, AI Faculty Fellow, Senior Lecturer, CHESS
Segment 1
Can AI Read the Construction Drawings?
Gongfan Chen, Assistant Professor, COE
Saniya Pritchett, Undergraduate Student, COE
Engineering plan reading bridges design and construction, building spatial reasoning and professional readiness. Mastery often takes years of job site practice, which is hard to replicate in classrooms. This creates a gap in tools that help students visualize and interpret drawings. Recent multimodal AI can analyze images and generate spatial insights. This story shares our journey using AI to assist construction drawing interpretation, with practical examples for education.
‘Use Cases’ Creates Havoc for Administrator
Steve Carter, Associate Director, Strategy Implementation & Reporting, SPS
AI can help us innovate, automate, and/or derive insight much more quickly than we could if we were relying solely on skills we had already mastered. For example, an administrator used AI to build a database for combining and reporting data spread across unconnected and incompatible systems. But, even with AI, sometimes the work doesn’t go as envisioned. This story surfaces implications worth exploring when the human-computer collaboration doesn’t result in the fairytale solution.
Segment 2
Joining Forces: How I Found My Best Technical Peer in a Text Box
Marie Vrablic, Data Systems Analyst and Academic Affairs Support, Academic Affairs
I set out to track 52,000 students but hit a technical wall that made our data lie. With my team being on holiday vacation, my only choice was to partner with an AI. Together, we audited 93,000 rows, fixed the logic, and uncovered a 24.5% retention lift for students completing PathwayU assessments. This isn’t just about a dashboard; it’s about how a text box became my most reliable technical partner, proving that the most human-centered insights can come from an “artificial” collaborator.
Resigning from the AI Police Force: Embracing Instructional Growth
Debbie Baker, Senior Lecturer, CHESS
Unprecedented challenges in facilitating online, communication-focused group projects increased during the Spring 2025 term. Student requests to remove underperforming group members doubled, leading to an epiphany about the instructor’s implicit role in moderating AI use, particularly ChatGPT. Redesigning the course to prioritize oral communication and collaborative AI integration restored balance, renewed engagement, and transformed conflict into opportunities for instructional growth.
Active Workshops
Exploratory and Interactive Practice with AI Tools
ROOM 901
Using Adobe Express
Jim Babbage, Senior Strategic Development Manager for Higher Education, Adobe
Todd Taylor, Senior Solutions Consultant, Adobe
ROOM 905
Re-imagining Meaningful Social Connection in the Classroom Utilizing AI
Megan Smith, Assistant Teaching Professor, CHESS
Gen Z is the loneliest generation, affecting their social interactions, sense of belonging, and ability to develop meaningful relationships in academic settings. Combined with underdeveloped interpersonal and social skills, academic and career readiness competencies are negatively affected due to social disconnection. This interactive session blends both concepts, social connection and AI skills, in a practical teaching activity focused on building social connection with the use of an AI tool.
ROOM 906
AI Research: AI Tools for Finding and Analyzing Scholarship: Uses, Strengths, and Weaknesses
Megan Keaton, Associate Teaching Professor, Associate Director, Writing Resources Center, CHESS
Attendees will engage with three AI tools and learn strategies for using these tools to help with finding sources and reading/analyzing sources. These tools and strategies can be used for one’s own scholarship or brought into the classroom to help students find and critically read sources. Attendees will have the opportunity to use the tools as we talk through the uses, strengths, and weaknesses of each tool.
ROOM 1101
The Co-Creative Classroom: Partnering with AI for Pedagogical Innovation
Premkumar Pugalenthi, Clinical Assistant Professor, COED
Daniel Maxwell, University Supervisor and Lecturer, COED
This workshop brings the UNC Charlotte AI Faculty Task Force Report into classroom practice. Grounded in the report’s commitment to human-AI collaboration, faculty participants will explore how various colleges on campus can reimagine their classrooms as co-creative spaces. Attendees will engage in a “Case Study Carousel” to identify productive uses of AI and a “Design Sprint” to create teaching strategies that protect critical thinking while fostering imagination.
ROOM 1102
Co-Creating Classroom AI Policies
Aileen Benedict, Lecturer, CCI
Jordan Blekking, Assistant Professor, SDS
Sandra Watts, Teaching Professor and Academic Director, CHESS, SPS
ROOM 1104
From Repetitive Tasks to AI Assistants: Building Custom Gems with Google AI
Katherine Bennett, Manager, Instructional Design & Training, Client Engagement, OneIT
Kara Hite, OneIT Trainer in Client Engagement, OneIT
Beth Rugg, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Client Engagement and the Chief Workplace AI Officer, OneIT
This interactive, hands-on workshop introduces university staff to the practical use of Google Gems as a way to streamline repetitive tasks and improve day-to-day efficiency. Participants will begin by identifying a routine task from their own workflow—such as drafting communications, summarizing documents, or developing visual content concepts—and then transform that task into a reusable AI-powered Gem. Through guided instruction and real-time practice, attendees will learn how to design effective prompts, structure instructions for consistency, and refine outputs to meet their needs. The session emphasizes immediate application, enabling participants to leave with a first draft of a Gem tailored to their role. In addition to building their own AI assistant, participants will explore considerations for responsible AI use, including accuracy, data sensitivity, and appropriate use in a university environment.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks using AI
- Design and build a custom Google Gem for a specific workflow
- Apply prompt structuring techniques to improve output quality
- Evaluate AI-generated results for accuracy and appropriateness
This 45-minute session is designed for university staff with little to no prior experience using AI tools and focuses on practical, immediately applicable skills.
Lightning Talks & panel Discussions
20 Minute Presentations with Q&A & 50 Minute Panel Discussions with Q&A
Session 1
ROOM 501
Academic Integrity: Now With 80% More Robots
Kaela Lindquist, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Student Accountability & Conflict Resolution, Student Affairs, Dean of Students
This lightning talk highlights key elements of UNC Charlotte’s Code of Student Academic Integrity and offers practical, behavior‑based strategies for setting and communicating AI expectations in your courses. Attendees will receive sample syllabus wording and AI‑use disclosure examples.
ROOM 502
From Curriculum to Gemini: How We Used ADDIE and AI to Redesign Inclusive K–12 STEM Learning
Ya-Ping Wu, Associate Professor, Visiting Scholar, COED
This project integrates ADDIE with AI to boost K–12 STEM inclusion. Using 47 teacher-designed lessons from a 2025–26 UNC Charlotte initiative, we embedded a Multi-Tiered Interventions (MTI) framework: Tier 1 (UDL), Tier 2 (Differentiated), and Tier 3 (IEP-aligned). Based on a 13-teacher needs analysis, we built the NC-AI-STEM Agent via Gemini. This AI “consultant” generates real-time supports like text simplification and task breakdowns to ensure every learner succeeds.
ROOM 504
Helping Students Get Unstuck, One Recipe Step at a Time
Nadia Najjar, Teaching Associate Professor, Interim Director of the Integrated Core Curriculum, CCI
Adam Whaley, Associate Teaching Professor, CCI
Trycycle is an interactive application that helps CS1 students break problems into manageable steps using the Design Recipe framework. The system guides students through inputs, outputs, purpose statements, and examples, and uses large language models to provide immediate, personalized feedback on each step. By focusing on reasoning rather than solution generation, Trycycle supports productive struggle, transferable problem solving, and student confidence in introductory computing.
ROOM 506
When the Boss Is Wrong: Practicing Moral Advocacy Through AI Role-Play
Tiffany Gallicano, Associate Professor& Honors Program Director, CHESS
Casey Nash, School Customer Experience Consultant, UNC Charlotte Alumni
Audience members will learn about using generative AI for adaptive learning. Students used ChatGPT to practice moral advocacy when asked to do something unethical by “their boss,” using a prewritten prompt from the instructor. Students engaged in a role-play simulation, followed by personalized feedback upon its conclusion, and repeated the exercise with an additional issue to apply the feedback. Transcripts and assessment data were collected.
ROOM 906
From Scenarios to Solutions: Boosting Elementary Teacher Competencies with Case-based Learning and AI-Augmented Differentiation
Kirsten Abel, Clinical Assistant Professor, COED
Tracy Rock, Professor, COED
Karen Kopitsky, Graduate Student, COED
Adriana Medina, Professor, COED
Ji Yae Bong, Assistant Professor, COED
To use artificial intelligence ethically and effectively, teachers need support. Yet, best practices for employing Generative Artificial Intelligence within teacher education programs are still being developed. In this Lightning Talk, we will examine how GenAI was used within an educator preparation course to augment a Case-based learning module to support Teacher Candidates as they built their skills in differentiated instruction and digital literacy.
ROOM 901
The AI Plagiarism Problem
Gordon Hull, Professor, CHESS
Min Jiang, Professor, CHESS
Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, Professor, CCI
The diffusion of generative AI has made it much easier for students to submit AI-generated work, especially for writing assignments. This panel will focus on how to frame the AI plagiarism problem, as well as strategies for dealing with it.
Session 2
ROOM 501
You Can’t Put That There: Security & Privacy Considerations for AI Usage
Branden Rosenlieb, IT Director, OneIT
The explosion in popularity and utility of AI tools presents some unique considerations for responsible usage and privacy preservation. The ease of use and accessibility of these tools should not overshadow requirements to maintain data security. This lightning talk will offer overviews of how AI models ingest and interpret data, the University’s data security guidelines, limitations on what data can be sent to AI tools, and resources for knowing which tools have been vetted by OneIT.
ROOM 502
AI-Assisted Divergent Thinking: A Model to Support Students’ Design Metacognition
Robert Loweth, Teaching Assistant Professor, COE
Divergent thinking is a crucial part of design that can often be a struggle to students. This talk will present a model for AI-assisted divergent thinking that aims to help students apply the benefits of Generative AI while mitigating the challenges of such use. Our model has three overall steps: 1) offline divergent thinking, 2) strategic use of Generative AI, and 3) decision-making. Our model is meant to foster students’ design metacognition to improve their design performance and learning.
ROOM 504
The Digital Peacekeeper: Transforming Polarized Student Debates Through AI-Mediated Dialogue
Carrie Wells, Associate Teaching Professor, KCOS
Jane Walsh, Lecturer, KCOS
To combat polarization during online debate, this study uses Sway Beta AI as a neutral mediator in a 2026 Biology course. The AI Guide pairs opposing views and de-escalates conflict, reducing self-censorship by removing the instructor’s immediate authority. Pilot results from 2025 show 100% of students remained unoffended by their partner’s view, and 66% experienced mindset shifts. This research provides a scalable model for using AI to foster deep learning and empathetic civic engagement.
ROOM 506
From Passenger to Pilot: Reframing AI Literacy Through Human Judgment and Collaboration
Jennifer Adelhardt, Adjunct Faculty, BCOB
As generative AI becomes embedded in student learning, the question is no longer whether students will use AI, but how thoughtfully they will collaborate with it. This lightning talk reframes AI literacy as a human-centered competency, grounded in research and classroom practice, and explores how faculty can design learning experiences that position AI as a thinking partner rather than an answer engine.
ROOM 906
Reimagining Course Design, Facilitation, and Instruction with Generative AI: A Systematic Review of Pedagogical Innovations and Learning Outcomes in Higher Education
Ayesha Sadaf, Associate Professor, COED
Ji Yae Bong, Assistant Professor, COED
Katherine Jiawen Ren, Graduate Student, COED
Judson MacDonald, Graduate Student, COED
Delandrus Seales, Graduate Student & UNCW Faculty, COED
This lightning talk will share a systematic review of faculty use of Generative AI (GenAI) to enhance student learning. Guided by the Teaching Presence framework, the review examines how GenAI supports course design, facilitation, and direct instruction, as well as the learning outcomes associated with these teaching practices. Findings highlight how GenAI expands instructional possibilities and informs the purposeful integration of GenAI in higher education teaching and learning.
Session 3
ROOM 501
Bridging the Gap—Leveraging Generative AI for Inter-disciplinary Faculty Connections
Alex Chapin, Executive Director of Academic Technologies, OneIT
Introducing Faculty Connections 2.0, a Gen AI-powered evolution of our faculty directory. This platform leverages Generative AI to automate profile creation and discover interdisciplinary links through AI-generated research tags. By syncing with Faculty Activity Reporting systems via web APIs, it transforms administrative data into searchable insights and hashtag visualizations. Learn how these AI workflows bridge silos, automate management, and foster a connected research community.
ROOM 502
AI Hallucinated Sources: Reining in AI’s Overactive Imagination in Research
Natalie Ornat Bitting, Humanities Librarian, J. Murrey Atkins Library
As students and faculty increasingly rely on AI tools for research, they risk being fed hallucinated citations. If not caught, these can spread misinformation, poison databases, and lead to reputational harm. Attendees will understand what AI hallucinated citations are and how they can verify sources provided to them by AI tools. This talk will also encourage attendees to consider the limits that LLMs offer as tools to find scholarly sources and ways to go beyond these models to find sources.
ROOM 504
How Can We Analyze and Address Generative AI Usage by Students in an Undergraduate Computer Science Classroom?
Miranda Parker, Assistant Professor, CCI
Lolo Aboufoul, Graduate Student, CCI
Braxton Haight, Graduate Student, CCI
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have become popular among computer science students. However, students are increasingly using these tools to generate code solutions for their assignments rather than using the tools to solely provide assistance. We discuss how this behavioral shift, as seen in code artifacts, indicates that our traditional means of measuring student effort, struggle, and success may no longer hold in environments where generative AI is readily available.
ROOM 506
Reproducing Racial Stereotypes? A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Generative AI-Produced Reading Passages
Alex Dornburg, Assistant Professor, CCI
Shuai Shao, Graduate Student, CCI
Jue Wang, Graduate Student, COED
GenAI tools increasingly create educational content, raising concerns about reproducing racial stereotypes. We analyzed 210 ChatGPT-generated SAT passages across three scenarios and seven racial groups using Critical Race Theory, sentiment analysis, and lexical clustering. Results show GenAI systematically encodes racial stereotypes through language patterns, often in positive/neutral tones.
ROOM 906
Supporting Students in the Age of AI: What Their Stress, Confidence, and Dependence Tell Us
Stella Kim, Associate Professor, CHESS
Delandrus Seales, Graduate Student and UNCW Faculty, CHESS
Martyna Wasilewska, Graduate Student, CHESS
College students are using AI more than ever, but how does that interaction shape their stress, confidence, and dependence? This lightning talk shares findings from a study of 274 students that AI use does not reduce stress or increase confidence, but it strongly predicts dependence. We will discuss implications for teaching, supporting students, and ethical AI literacy in higher education.
ROOM 901
Efficiency or Ethics? A Panel on AI-Assisted Grading and Course Preparation
Cori Faklaris, Assistant Professor, CCI
Tiffany Gallicano, Associate Professor, Honors Program Director, CHESS
Justin Cary, Senior Lecturer, Program Director, CHESS
This panel explores the “hidden” use of AI by faculty for grading and prep. While AI offers vital workload relief, it raises questions about student trust and transparency. Faculty from the Center for Humane AI Studies will debate which tasks (from slide creation to high-stakes grading) are suitable for AI. Participants will leave with best practices for responsible implementation and disclosure strategies that align with UNC Charlotte’s vision for academic integrity.
Session 4
ROOM 501
From Campus to System: Scaling AI Literacy Through Workplace and Faculty Development Initiatives
Beth Rugg, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Client Engagement & Chief Workplace AI Officer, OneIT
Jules Keith-Le, Academic Technology Support Analyst, OneIT, Adjunct Faculty, COED
Discover how UNC Charlotte’s OneIT advances AI literacy through complementary initiatives: workplace AI integration and system-wide faculty collaboration. This session highlights strategies for building AI fluency through workshops at Charlotte and engagement with a learning community spanning all 17 UNC institutions. Learn how these parallel efforts create sustainable pathways for responsible AI adoption and how to get involved!
ROOM 502
Reimagining Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences with Generative AI
Alex Dornburg, Assistant Professor, CCI
Aditi Babar, Undergraduate Student, CCI, Honors College
Kristin Davin, Professor, COED
This study investigates how integrating generative AI into a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) impacts student development in research skills, AI literacy, and scientific engagement. Through a redesigned honors section of BINF 1101 at UNC Charlotte, we examine how AI can scaffold early-stage undergraduates as they formulate questions, analyze data, and disseminate findings.
ROOM 504
Impact of an AI Chatbot on Student Engagement and Learning in Online Courses
Beth Oyarzun, Clinical Associate Professor, COED
Daniel Maxwell, Lecturer and University Supervisor, COED
This study aims to examine the impact of an AI chatbot in online discussions to enhance student engagement and learning in online courses. Specifically, we plan to integrate Notebook LM in an asynchronous online discussion in an online course. This chatbot can simulate real-time conversations, respond to student queries, and provide clarification on course content.
ROOM 506
Cui Bono? Decolonizing Artificial Intelligence Through Historicized AI Literacy
Richard Lockton, History Instructor, CHESS
For AI to live up to its touted potential, AI Literacy should teach historicized skillsets for evaluating the rhetoric around AI adoption while encouraging informed personal agency for judicious AI use. The values linked to “innovation” exist as historical discourses as much as self-evident ends. This talk therefore calls for a contextually framed AI Literacy standard that fosters critical skepticism concerning information technology and its past to present ties to hegemonies of power.
ROOM 906
AI Ethics
Human–AI Partnerships: From Learning About AI to Learning with AI in Higher Education
Lufei Young, Professor, CHHS
Candace Brown, Associate Professor, CHHS
Apryl Alexander, Professor, CHHS
Boyd Davis, Professor Emerita, CHESS
Diti Patel, Graduate Student, CHHS
Meredith Troutman-Jordan, Systems Coordinator, Professor, CHHS
Ticola Ross, Clinical Associate Professor and Associate Director, CHHS
Abbey Thomas, Associate Professor, CHHS
Generative AI (GenAI) is no longer optional in higher education. This mixed-methods study examined GenAI attitudes, readiness, and classroom use among CHHS students and faculty (N=120). Findings reveal a readiness–exposure paradox: students and faculty perceive strong benefits, yet report limited guided classroom integration. This presentation reframes GenAI adoption as a shift from fear-based restriction to intentional human–AI partnership in health professions education.