WestConn to Launch Graduate Degree Program in Artificial Intelligence

Western Connecticut State University has developed a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence degree that is enrolling students for classes that begin this Fall.

“WestConn identified this degree as a game-changer for people in the workforce, or those about to start their first job in the field,” said Interim President Dr Manohar Singh. “The program will provide the tools to accelerate careers and help graduates move the industry forward during this time of great advancement in the field.”

WestConn’s new program acknowledges the interplay of both Mathematics and Computer Science in AI technology, and has created a graduate degree that relies heavily on foundations in both.

• Students holding a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science who have taken the necessary pre-requisite courses can enroll immediately and should be able to complete the program in three semesters.

• Students with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics may need to fulfill some Computer Science electives in order to meet the admissions criteria.

• Students holding degrees in other STEM disciplines will also be welcome to apply after completion of some pre-requisite Mathematics and Computer Science courses.

If you’ve ever asked Alexa a question or had your phone attempt to auto-fill a text message for you or had your email provider flag an email as likely spam, you’ve probably had an experience with Artificial Intelligence (AI), WCSU officials point out.

The field is described as a “growing technology and one that will provide considerable employment opportunities for individuals who are trained in the theoretical and practical applications of AI.”

Classes are designed to be in-person and hands-on, with experiments in coding to allow students to determine outcomes. Small class sizes will enable students to get to know their professors personally, and individualized instruction will allow faculty to help students pursue their interests in specific sub-topics in the field.

Computer Science Department Chair Dr. Dan Coffman said WestConn’s AI degree will be “a deep program in the theoretical and computational basis of how AI works. Coursework will help students realize this goal by utilizing Computer Science analysis techniques and Mathematical prediction and probability.”

The outcome, Coffman said, will be graduates who are highly sought after by banks, insurance companies, research firms and government entities. “They’ll be in high demand because they will be well-versed in how AI really works, and the New York City area is a hotbed for these kinds of jobs,” Coffman added.

Math Department Chair Dr. David Burns agreed. “There are so many places where AI is becoming useful now: web development, application development, things like ChatGPT that can create content, apps that detect content like spam filters, algorithms and methods that look at keywords to create patterns so you can make judgments based on anomalies. It’s an expanding field, so job opportunities should be fairly prolific, and these are reasonably high-paying tech jobs,” he said.

WestConn’s AI master’s degree program provides for a supervised internship, final project or thesis during the last semester. Coffman noted that internships often turn into full-time jobs, and Burns added that there are a lot of tech companies in the region that will be good resources for these internships. There are also regional, national and international annual meetings at which students will have the opportunity to present their research and learn from professionals and other graduate students.

“We are able to offer this innovative degree through the combination the faculty expertise in our accomplished Computer Science and Mathematics departments,” said Dr. Michelle Brown, Dean of the Macricostas School of Arts & Sciences.

“They have been teaching sophisticated undergraduate degrees for decades, and putting them together in a combined graduate degree made sense, especially when we looked at workforce needs for our region.” Brown added, “It’s important that the program also provides training in the ethics of AI, which is itself an area of increasing importance and development.”

While WestConn has offered classes in AI for a decade, new interest in the technology has resulted in a rejuvenation of the coursework, including the hiring of Dr. Shahab Band, who has years of experience working in the field of artificial intelligence.

In addition, he brings detailed knowledge of the related field of cybersecurity, the area of his doctoral research. Additional faculty include Computer Science Department Chair Dr. Dan Coffman, who, for more than 10 years was a member of the human speech research group in the research division of IBM Corporation. He is highly knowledgeable in the field of natural language processing. And Dr. Henry Wu, a new faculty member beginning in fall 2024, who is an expert in cybersecurity, computer networks, and computer architecture.

Mathematics faculty include Dr. Stavros Christofi, who specializes in optimization and machine learning; Dr. Charles Rocca, who specializes in abstract algebra, cryptography, discrete mathematics, and teaches courses already required by both Computer Science and Mathematics undergraduate degrees; Dr. Michael Shoushani, who has expertise in statistics and numerical methods for partial differential equations; and Dr. Xiaodi Wang, who specializes in Wavelet Analysis, Harmonics Analysis and Machine Learning.

WestConn’s AI degree program’s ethics and safety component will be taught by Dr. Anna Malavisi, who specializes in ethics and philosophy; and Dr. D.L. Stephenson, who specializes in ethics, media, rhetoric and communication.

“AI is actually not a new subject,” Coffman said. “Its roots easily date back to the 1970s. What is new now is the computational ability to work with huge files, to make use of techniques developed in the last few years. Graduates of our program will be in high demand because they will really understand how it works.”