AI: What’s Happening At Oberlin

DATE: Tuesday, March 10, 2026

TIME: 7:00–8:30 PM Eastern Time ( 6-7:30 PM CST, 5-6:30 PM MST, 4-5:30 PM PST)

In September Oberlin President Ambar designated 2025-'26 the Year of AI Exploration at Oberlin. Among the goals for the year are:
• Support institutional exploration of AI through speakers, workshops, and hands-on opportunities for faculty, staff, and students.
• Grapple with the concerns that AI raises in faculty research and pedagogy, student learning, ethical and privacy matters, environmental considerations
• Work together to establish policy and procedures. 

In this session alumni will receive an update from administration, faculty, and a student six months into the exploration effort.  Alumni will have the opportunity to submit questions when registering and during the program.

Speakers: 

Laura Baudot, Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Professor of English, and Director, StudiOC

Adam Eck, David H. and Margaret W. Barker Associate Professor of Computer Science and Chair of Data Science and Critical AI Studies

Tanisha Shende ‘26, Senior Computer Science and Mathematics Major, Minoring in Sociology and an Integrative Concentration in Data Science

REGISTER

Biographies:

Laura Baudot (BA, Wellesley College, 1997, PhD, Princeton University, 2005) is Oberlin Associate Professor of English and Director, StudiOC. She chairs the Educational Plans and Policies Committee (EPPC). Her research and teaching interests center on 18th-century British literature and include history of science, 18th-century British art, and book history. Her interest in book history and 18th-century art has grown as a result of developing teaching strategies aimed at both broadening the appeal of 18th-century literary works and giving students a more vivid sense of historical context. In her course on the 18th-century British novel, she holds lab sessions in the library’s Special Collections.  She is currently writing a book about how empirical, philosophical, and religious concepts of empty space and nothingness animate a tradition of 18th-century English literary experimentation with the printed book.

Adam Eck is the Arts & Sciences Director of AI Strategy and Innovation; David H. and Margaret W. Barker Associate Professor of Computer Science, Business, and Data Science; and Chair of Data Science and Critical AI Studies at Oberlin College. His teaching interests include introducing students to problem solving using computer science and computational methods, as well as the fundamentals and applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence.  Adam leads the Social Intelligence Lab at Oberlin where he conducts research with students studying multiagent decision-making in complex environments, as well as interdisciplinary applications of machine learning in computational social science and public health.

Tanisha Shende is a senior at Oberlin College majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics, with a minor in Sociology and an integrative concentration in Data Science. She conducts research on human-computer interaction, AI, and virtual reality at Cornell University, MIT, and Oberlin. Her goal is to obtain a PhD in Computer Science or Information Science.