Research

Would you rather buy from a cuddly chatbot, or the “Lipstick King”?

Jennifer Anzaldi — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 18:03:48 +0000

Would you rather buy from a cuddly chatbot, or the “Lipstick King”? Jennifer Anzaldi Tue, 03/04/2025 - 13:03

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Historically, entertainment and advertising have worked as a tag team, taking turns soliciting attention from audiences. But our social-media age is blending the two into new, hybrid forms.

Witness livestream shopping, a seamless amalgam of e-commerce and entertainment. In place of one-way messaging delivered by polished pitchpeople, this model employs relatable influencers presenting products for online sale—and chatting with consumers—in real-time sessions that often last several hours.

Famously popular in China, livestream shopping is picking up steam in the United States. In June 2024, as an example, U.S. TikTok netted its first million-dollar livestream, courtesy of Texas-based brand Canvas Beauty. By 2026, live shopping may be responsible for as much as five percent of all e-commerce sales in the U.S., according to industry projections.

For global brands, this means a possible revenue explosion. But for information-systems scholars like Si Xie, assistant professor at Costello College of Business, the global rise of livestream shopping represents an unprecedented research opportunity.

Si Xie. Photo provided

“One of the most important elements of livestream shopping is the interaction,” Xie says. “Livestreams bring all potential buyers into the same virtual room, together with the influencer. People can see which products have been put in the online shopping cart, and which have been purchased.”

Her recently published paper in Production & Operations Management finds that the longer an individual product is showcased in a livestream featuring several different brands, the more revenue it will generate. Yet as product showcase duration goes up, overall revenue from the livestream goes down.

To reach their conclusions, the research team—including co-authors Siddhartha Sharma of Indiana University and Amit Mehra of University of Texas at Dallas—analyzed data from nearly 75,000 livestreams conducted in China during 2021.

For Xie, the findings point to a fundamental conflict between the incentives of livestreamers and the brands they promote. It is in the best interest of third-party influencers to move fairly rapidly between different types of products, but brands will want more airtime devoted to each one.

“People like variety,” Xie explains. “If I watch a livestream and all I see are shirts in different fabrics, I might feel there are not too many choices I can make. However, if you show me a shirt and then a pair of pants, I can make an outfit. There’s a higher probability of my making more purchases, and that’s in line with the third-party livestreamers’ incentives.”

One way to correct these misaligned incentives would be for brands to use the power of the purse to influence the influencers. In China, even the suggestion of such corrupting relationships has caused public scandal. In 2023, for example, top livestreamer Li Jiaqi (nicknamed “The Lipstick King” for his ability to sell beauty products) lost one million followers on social media after lashing out at an online commenter who complained about the high price of an eyebrow pencil made by Chinese cosmetics company Florasis. Li, Florasis’s most prominent brand ambassador, was excoriated for ostensibly putting his relationship with the brand above empathy for financially struggling consumers.

“People were saying, ‘you are trying to be defensive of the product because you get so much interest from selling that pencil’”, Xie says. “Therefore, Li’s credibility was really impaired.”

If Xie’s paper describes how human imperfections can jeopardize livestream shopping, could AI be the answer? Indeed, AI-powered animated chatbots — both paired with human influencers, and serving customers solo during off-peak sales hours — have become commonplace on China’s livestreams. For her PhD dissertation, Xie probed data from more than 70,000 livestreams in China and found that introducing an AI assistant boosted livestream sales by about 18%. But the effect steadily declined over time — and not because the novelty wore off. The rapidly improving algorithmic responses had the unintended consequence of shorter watch durations, which may have reduced impulse buying. Xie’s suggested remedy? “The owner of the gen-AI tools could modify the interaction between the virtual livestreamer and the audience to encourage more engagement, perhaps by adjusting the learning speed to ensure that the audience remains engaged for a longer period."

Xie also suggests that brands and channels replace humanoid avatars with cute, cuddly “mascots” that users just can’t bring themselves to click away from.

Xie says she’s working on future papers that tease insights out of livestream data. “One good thing about this new technology is that it promotes the user to buy using methods we can observe. Livestreamers sell general items like grocery items and clothing, as well as expensive stuff like cars and houses, and you can really see how people behave.”

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George Mason sets in motion a plan to harness AI for responsible adoption and societal impact

Colleen Rich — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 20:07:19 +0000

George Mason sets in motion a plan to harness AI for responsible adoption and societal impact Colleen Rich Mon, 03/03/2025 - 15:07

At last week’s Board of Visitors meeting, ��AV’s Vice President and Chief AI Officer Amarda Shehu rolled out a new model for universities to advance a responsible approach to harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and drive societal impact. George Mason’s model, called AI²Nexus, is building a nexus of collaboration and resources on campus, throughout the region with our vast partnerships, and across the state.

AI²Nexus is based on four key principles: “Integrating AI” to transform education, research, and operations; “Inspiring with AI” to advance higher education and learning for the future workforce; “Innovating with AI” to lead in responsible AI-enabled discovery and advancements across disciplines; and “Impacting with AI” to drive partnerships and community engagement for societal adoption and change.

Shehu said George Mason can harness its own ecosystem of AI teaching, cutting-edge research, partnerships, and incubators for entrepreneurs to establish a virtuous cycle between foundational and user-inspired AI research within ethical frameworks.

As part of this effort, the university’s AI Task Force, established by President Gregory Washington last year, has developed new guidelines to help the university navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI technologies, which are available at gmu.edu/ai-guidelines.

Further, Information Technology Services (ITS) will roll out the NebulaONE academic platform equipping every student, staff, and faculty member with access to hundreds of cutting-edge Generative AI models to support access, performance, and data protection at scale.

“We are anticipating that AI integration will allow us to begin to evaluate and automate some routine processes reducing administrative burdens and freeing up resources for mission-critical activities,” added Charmaine Madison, George Mason’s vice president of information services and CIO.

George Mason is already equipping students with AI skills as a leader in developing AI-ready talent ready to compete and new ideas for critical sectors like cybersecurity, public health, and government. In the classroom, the university is developing courses and curriculums to better prepare our students for a rapidly changing world.

In spring 2025, the university launched a cross-disciplinary graduate course, AI: Ethics, Policy, and Society, and in fall 2025, the university is debuting a new undergraduate course open to all students, AI4All: Understanding and Building Artificial Intelligence. A master’s in computer science and machine learning, an Ethics and AI minor for undergraduates of all majors, and a Responsible AI Graduate Certificate are more examples of Mason’s mission to innovate AI education. New academies are also in development, and the goal is to build an infrastructure of more than 100 active core AI and AI-related courses across George Mason’s colleges and programs.  

The university will continue to host workshops, conferences, and public forums to shape the discourse on AI ethics and governance while forging deep and meaningful partnerships with industry, government, and community organizations to offer academies to teach and codevelop technologies to meet our global society needs. State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) will partner with the university to host an invite-only George Mason-SCHEV AI in Education Summit on May 20-21 on the Fairfax Campus.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has appointed Jamil N. Jaffer, the founder and executive director of the National Security Institute (NSI) at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School, to the Commonwealth’s new AI Task Force, which will work with legislators to regulate rapidly advancing AI technology.

The university’s AI-in-Government Council is trusted resource for academia, public-sector tech providers, and government for advancing AI approaches, governance frameworks, and robust guardrails to guide AI development and deployment in government.

Learn more about George Mason’s AI work underway at gmu.edu/AI.

More informaton on the Board of Visitors' February meeting is forthcoming and will be published in Thursday, March 5, George.

Listen to the episode

Interested in more from Amarda Shehu? Listen to her discuss AI's risks and rewards on the Access to Excellence podcast.

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Engineering professors develop human-AI colorization tool for cartoonists

Shayla Brown — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:28:34 +0000

Engineering professors develop human-AI colorization tool for cartoonists Shayla Brown Mon, 03/03/2025 - 12:28

��AV professor Sungsoo Ray Hong has always been a huge fan of cartoons, comics, and animations. By combining his passion with his research area of human-computer interaction, he has created a new tool for cartoonists, ShadowMagic.

Hong, his colleague Yotam Gingold, and their PhD students published a paper, “ShadowMagic: Designing Human-AI Collaborative Support for Comic Professionals’ Shadowing,” elucidating the need for the tool, which aims to boost product quality and designer productivity through study-informed human-AI interaction.

The team worked with professional cartoonists to find common workflow of colorization that is shared within the industry as a reference point for their research, which examines the evolution of designing technology as cartoonists transitioned from using PCs in the 1980s to artificial intelligence, said Hong, who is an assistant professor at the Department of Information Sciences and Technology.

Creating a comic book is a team effort as there are many roles throughout the process including story drafting, sketching, colorizing, editing, and sending to a production company, said Hong.

“Professional cartoonists are sometimes producing content every other day,” said Hong, who is also director of George Mason’s Alignment Lab. “You cannot commit to these kinds of deadlines doing everything by yourself. That's why the colorization industry is so helpful to professional cartoonists.”

Colorization is a sequential process of line drawing, flatting, base colorization, shadows and/or lighting, background and other special effects. The tool stems from a previous project, FlatMagic, another AI-driven tool designed to improve the creative process for digital comic professionals.

“This is a fairly standardized process, especially in South Korea and growing throughout the United States as well,” he explained. “The solutions to these network visualizations should be contextualized, but we have the limited resources. We can’t build everything for everybody. That’s my motivation here.”

Gingold also specializes in human-computer interaction and “has always been interested in sketching and how computers can help us express ourselves,” said the Department of Computer Science associate professor.

Yotam Gingold (left) and Ray Hong in Research Hall, presenting their colorization tool. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding.

“We looked at artistic challenges, usually tedious things that aren’t so fun for the artists and break down those problems, so that they can focus more on the creative parts of it,” said Gingold, who is the director of George Mason’s Computational Reality, Creativity, and Graphics Lab.

There are millions of pixels in an image, and if an artist wants to move or change the color of a building for example, they point at one pixel among the millions. The artist wants the rest of the pixels to follow along naturally so the rest of the building should also change, he explained.

“The computers will do the math where we can write formulas to update all the other millions of pixels. Another example would be keeping lines parallel and corners perpendicular, and that’s where a lot of my research comes in,” said.

While a doctoral student at George Mason, Chuan Yan, PhD ’24, was recruited by Gingold for this project and conducted research on sketching and painting. Yan’s area of expertise encompasses computer graphics fundamentals and sketch-related computer vision techniques, which he had learned extensively from Gingold, he explained.

The ShadowMagic tool was built as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in, and since its release, the team “has garnered significant interest from artists inquiring about updates and expressing a strong desire for a tool that could free them from the labor-intensive flatting process,” said Yan, who is currently a postdoc researcher at Stanford University.

“This response is both exciting and humbling. It confirms that our research is addressing a real need in the industry yet also highlights the remaining challenges in making [the tool] ready for widespread adoption.”

Yan believes that as more sophisticated generative AI systems continue to emerge, AI-human collaboration will become increasingly vital.

“I am excited to witness and contribute to this transformation, helping to shape a future where AI acts as a powerful tool that amplifies human creativity rather than replacing it,” he said.

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Sungsoo Ray Hong

Yotam Gingold

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Keeping data safe by keeping it separate

Teresa Donnellan — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:35:36 +0000

Keeping data safe by keeping it separate Teresa Donnellan Tue, 02/25/2025 - 10:35

Developing a robust cybersecurity system demands a lot of data, but keeping all that data in a single location introduces the risk of a data breach. Luckily, ��AV researcher Zhuangdi Zhu in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering specializes in federated learning, a method of decentralized machine learning that allows multiple entities to collaboratively train a machine learning model without sharing their raw data.

Zhu is using this expertise to assist Wajih Ul Hassan of the University of Virginia develop scalable host-based intrusion detection systems (HIDS). Together, Zhu and Hassan are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance a given host’s cybersecurity while ensuring data privacy.

HIDS monitor and analyze the activities within a single host or device. These systems use data, such as system logs, web browsing logs, and process logs, to detect irregularities that may indicate a security threat. For example, Zhu noted, a HIDS might detect malicious software that prompts a browser to download a harmful PDF file. By identifying such irregularities, the HIDS can prevent potential security breaches. Central management of these logs through managed security service providers (MSSPs) on cloud servers, however, could potentially breach user privacy. Enter: federated learning.

Zhuangdi Zhu, photo provided

In a federated learning system, each entity trains a local model on its own data and only shares the model updates with a central server. Local models are trained on individual datasets, and their findings are sent to a central server, Zhu explained. The server then aggregates these parameters to create a global model, which is subsequently sent back to the local models. This iterative process continues until a robust and accurate model is developed. Federated learning thus ensures sensitive data remains within the local models, addressing privacy concerns and complying with data regulations.

The project, funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, is set to span one year, starting in the summer of 2025. In addition to developing a federated learning framework for HIDS, the team plans to create an open-source dataset for intrusion detection, which will serve as a valuable resource for future research and development in this field.

Zhu's work on decentralized machine learning not only addresses critical privacy concerns but also paves the way for more secure and efficient threat detection systems. Her work on this project represents a significant step forward in the ongoing effort to protect digital environments from evolving cyber threats.

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George Mason scientist leads $1.8M NSF grant to address mobility challenges from urban flooding

Katarina Benson — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:36:52 +0000

George Mason scientist leads $1.8M NSF grant to address mobility challenges from urban flooding Katarina Benson Fri, 02/21/2025 - 14:36

��AV researcher Alireza Ermagun has been awarded a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to address mobility challenges caused by nuisance flooding. The project, a collaboration with Villanova University and the University of South Carolina, centers on understanding how frequent, low-level flooding disrupts daily transportation systems and devising equitable solutions.

Alireza Ermagun. Photo provided

Nuisance flooding frequently inundates roads and overwhelms stormwater systems, creating widespread transportation challenges. Ermagun emphasizes that such flooding disproportionately affects vulnerable populations who depend on public transit, walking, or biking. “These frequent but seemingly minor floods accumulate to create major disruptions, particularly for those already facing socioeconomic and mobility barriers,” said Ermagun, the director of Mobility Observatory and Data Analytics Lab and an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science. “This project aims to ensure that every resident has access to reliable transportation, regardless of the challenges posed by flooding.”

The research focuses on three neighborhoods in Philadelphia—Kensington, Manayunk, and Germantown—and involves close partnerships with the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), the Delaware Valley River Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), and the Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA). The team will examine the spatial and temporal extent of flooding in these areas and develop strategic green infrastructure solutions to address mobility barriers.

“Nuisance flooding is common but difficult to assess,” said Virginia Smith, a water resource scientist at Villanova University. “These events, however, disrupt people’s lives and their ability to move around their communities. By identifying where flooding occurs and its impact, we can develop meaningful solutions to improve daily life and beyond.”

The project places a strong emphasis on engaging communities directly impacted by nuisance flooding. Peleg Kremer, a social-ecological systems scientist at Villanova University, explained, “this project brings community voices into planning, translating their lived experiences into equitable, actionable solutions.”

“Many individuals rely on stable, predictable transportation patterns in their daily lives, and disruptions can be especially harmful for the most residents. Understanding the roots of these

impacts is key to creating effective solutions,” said Brian Levy, a social scientist at the University of South Carolina.

The project also aims to innovate in green infrastructure and mobility planning, ensuring that proposed solutions are not just functional but equitable. “By reducing mobility barriers through strategic infrastructure planning, we can promote resilience in urban transportation,” said Chenfeng Xiong, a transportation scientist at Villanova University.

Reflecting on the broader vision of the project, Ermagun emphasized the importance of combining data-driven approaches with community insight. “Some solutions, like flexible pick-up and drop-off stations or subsidies for ride sharing, show promise,” he said. “But to truly address the scale of the problem, we need to explore more transformative changes, potentially redesigning urban infrastructure, from roads to sewer systems. Our research aims to provide the data and strategies necessary to identify the most effective interventions while centering the voices of those most impacted.”

With a timeline extending through August 2028, this initiative offers unique opportunities for graduate students, researchers, and community members to collaborate on cutting-edge research while contributing to lasting, positive change in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.

“Our ultimate goal is to not only mitigate the impacts of nuisance flooding,” said Ermagun, “but also to empower communities to adapt and thrive in the face of increasing climate challenges.”

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Alireza Ermagun

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George Mason PhD is living the dream in NYC with Met fellowship

Katarina Benson — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:57:26 +0000

George Mason PhD is living the dream in NYC with Met fellowship Katarina Benson Wed, 02/19/2025 - 12:57

��AV history PhD candidate Jayme Kurland is living her dream this academic year as the Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

George Mason PhD candidate Jayme Kurland at the Met. Photo provided

Kurland started her college career as a viola performance major at the University of Oregon before earning her BA in music history. She then got a master’s in music history at Arizona State. As a Met fellow, Kurland is working in the musical instruments department and conducting research for her dissertation. “I’m back in my happy place,” she says, “just working with objects and thinking about the stories they can tell us.”

It’s Good to Be Back: Kurland fell in love with museum work as an undergrad when she landed a job at the Musical Instrument Museum in her hometown of Phoenix. “I never planned to move back home, but working as a curatorial assistant blended my music background with my love of museums.” She also worked as a curatorial research fellow in musical instruments at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 2013 to 2017.

Finding Your People: Working at the Met has allowed Kurland the opportunity to connect with scholars in the musical instruments department, as well as throughout the institution. And, of course, the resources the Met offers are unparalleled. “Returning to the museum world at an institution like the Met has been tremendously rewarding. I have been able to complete hands-on work with the museum's guitar collection and really dig into my own research.”

Guitar Heroes: Kurland’s research focuses on a group of Mexican American women who wired amplifiers, wound pickups, and assembled first guitars and amps for guitar manufacturer Fender between 1946 and 1965. In addition to examining instruments in the Met’s collection and conducting oral histories, Kurland is also working with experts at Brooklyn Lutherie, a women-owned guitar and violin repair shop, where they are building a piece of equipment called a pickup winder. “[Winding pickups] is one of the skills of the women I'm studying that was completed by hand. I think that understanding the physical skills [required of the women] is a way to better understand their experience.”

Putting Yourself Out There: In addition to working on her dissertation, Kurland gets to present her research to the public in various ways, including presenting to docents, in public programs, and in a symposium called Research Out Loud, where Met fellows discuss their work. Kurland also started a writing group for fellows that meets twice a week and “holds each other accountable for what we're working on.”

Out on the Town: When not working, Kurland explores the Big Apple. “I am living in NYC full time and really trying to take advantage of the city's music scene. I try to see as much live music as possible!”

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Psychology researcher focuses on why theatre education matters

Colleen Rich — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 15:27:35 +0000

Psychology researcher focuses on why theatre education matters Colleen Rich Wed, 02/19/2025 - 10:27

��AV psychology professor Thalia R. Goldstein’s work focuses on children's developing social and emotional skills, and how such skills intersect with imaginative activities. In her latest book, Why Theatre Education Matters: Understanding its Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Benefits (Teachers College Press, 2024), she pulls together the research she’s conducted on social and emotional learning and cognitive development.

George Mason psychology professor Thalia Goldstein. Photo by Office of University Branding

What inspired you to write this book?

I have been doing work on the benefits of theater education and the arts for about 15 years, and I realized that what was missing from the scientific literature was a foundational study of the actual activities that were happening in theater classrooms. The book came from this desire to go back to acting classrooms and look at what was happening and then tie that into all the different things I had learned in my research on social and emotional learning, and cognitive development.

How do you anticipate people using this book?

My hope is that the book will be used by acting teachers, theater teachers, and other educators interested in integrating theater techniques, such as role-playing, into their classrooms. There's research that shows that using these kinds of dramatic and playful techniques can help students be more motivated in different subjects and can help them learn more deeply and retain the information for longer. My hope too is that the book is useful for policy makers and people who are writing curriculum, as well as school administrators who are looking for ways to foster creativity and social emotional skills.

The book has been assigned as a textbook in a class called Acting for Non-Actors so that the students can see they are not learning how to perform Romeo on stage. That's not a thing they may ever do, but they are learning how to release their inhibitions, collaborate with others, and reflect on their behavior. All those things are skills that are useful no matter what your job is.

Was there anything that surprised you while working on the book?

One thing that surprised me was how much emphasis there was in these theatre classes on embodiment and physicality. Obviously, actors use their bodies as the instrument. In theater, there's this dualism where you have to use your body as yourself and as your character. But what surprised me was how much classroom time was spent doing things like pushups and sit-ups, jogging around, and meditation, in order to help students have a sense of their own physical limits and their kinesthetic understanding of where they are in space.

Science is showing more and more evidence that embodiment and understanding your body is the key to a lot of well-being and mental health. Emotion regulation—the ability to understand what you're feeling and then figuring out how to alter it—is a physical process. Emotions are in the body. Knowing what an emotion is is about reading the signals your body is sending you and figuring out what they mean. It makes sense to me that some of the best scientific evidence we have about the benefits of theater are about its benefits for emotional control and emotional understanding because it's an embodied practice, it's a physical practice.

What are you working on now?

Photo by Getty Images

We are collecting data from an elementary school where we're working with students taking their very first theater classes and talking to them about their feelings. We are also looking at how they understand these embodied class processes and then connecting what the students tell us to parent and teacher reports and academic grades. We are looking at the classroom activities and how they're connected to academic, interpersonal, and social outcomes.

Another thing we're doing is we're studying grownup play—like when adults go to cosplay conventions or Renaissance fairs or dress up for Halloween. All the ways in which we do pretend play as an adult. We always talk about how we don't do pretend play anymore when we're done being a kid, but the truth is huge numbers of people engage in these other kinds of pretend play activities. And we're trying to figure out why.

How did you get interested in studying theater?

I was a drama kid growing up. I did theater all through school and double majored in psychology and theater in college. I find that it’s a pretty common double major because both majors are asking the same question, which is ‘why do people do what they do?’ It's all about what are humans and why do they do what they do.

When I graduated from college, I moved to New York City and worked as a professional actor and dancer for a few years. I did some national tours and some small movies. I did some big movies as an extra in the background. Nothing super successful or I'd still be doing it. In the end, I decided that wasn't quite for me.

Because I had majored in psychology, I had done research in college. I find you can do psychological research on basically any question you have. If it has to do with humans, there's psychology behind it. I wanted to figure out the psychology of imagination, creativity, and play. When I applied to graduate schools, that’s the pathway I took.

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George Mason researcher gets CAREER award for quantum leaps in computing, with the help of AI

Nathan Kahl — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 17:55:11 +0000

George Mason researcher gets CAREER award for quantum leaps in computing, with the help of AI Nathan Kahl Thu, 02/13/2025 - 12:55

Weiwen Jiang, an assistant professor in the ��AV's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is an expert in quantum computing, having recently received nearly $1 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to study “noise” that impacts quantum computing and to work on training the next generation of quantum experts.

Jiang’s research is all about pushing the mysterious world of quantum computing into the mainstream. “We are at the quantum utility era, which means we are going to have computational applications that can be implemented with and utilize the power of quantum computing,” he said. But Jiang knows that researchers need a boost in understanding the full quantum capability.

In January he received an NSF CAREER award for $641,778 for his work on quantum-centric computing cyberinfrastructure (QuCI). A combination of quantum computers, classical computers, and AI accelerators, QuCI is set to revolutionize

Weiwen Jiang. Photo provided

software applications handling everything from geophysics, chemistry, finance, and life sciences, because it can outperform classical computing with its speed, accuracy, and the ability to handle large, data-heavy problems. For example, the success of processing geoscience data on quantum computers can enable real-time decision-making on natural hazards, which leads to cost savings, reduced environmental impacts, and improved safety.

Jiang’s project includes three thrusts. One is using what’s called an AI-powered quantum performance predictor, which leads to an innovative and efficient ability to allocate computing resources in the moment. Jiang said, “When a batch of jobs comes into the system, we need to allocate the jobs into different quantum nodes and we want to distribute the jobs effectively.”

Another focus is bridging a knowledge gap between experts who want to run software applications but are not experts in quantum. “In order to fill this gap we do not want the expert to learn quantum computing from scratch,” he said. “We’ll find opportunities to fine-tune the configuration for quantum control optimization,” helping a non-expert user harness the power of quantum computing by combining classical central-processing unit computing with quantum. Current QuCIs require complicated decision-making to ensure correct computing results are obtained, but this can fall into the hands of users who lack quantum knowledge. Jiang’s project automates QuCI deployment, making decisions and optimizations at different stages without human interference.

A third element is to develop what’s known as fault-tolerant quantum computing, which means allowing quantum computers to operate even when encountering errors. Jiang said, “Before we submit the job, we will add fault-tolerant protocols to ensure the functional correctness and boost performance.”

The NSF CAREER award is reserved for the nation’s most talented up-and-coming researchers. From the NSF website: “The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers NSF’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.”

Beyond the scientific impact, the project builds an easy-to-understand quantum education program, which includes building a visualization platform to make quantum computations visible. This is significantly important for beginners who easily suffer from the counterintuitive concepts of quantum computing. In addition, Jiang will create workshops, tutorials, and competitions for different research communities, contribute to a George Mason-led quantum immersion program for K-12 students; and redesign a quantum curriculum at George Mason with outcomes from this project.

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George Mason PhD student looks at deception and human-robot interactions

Colleen Rich — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 14:20:46 +0000

George Mason PhD student looks at deception and human-robot interactions Colleen Rich Thu, 02/13/2025 - 09:20

How likely are humans to trust a robot, especially if that robot has the capacity to lie? This is the question ��AV psychology doctoral candidate Andres Rosero is exploring in his research on human-robot interaction.

George Mason PhD candidate Andres Rosero, pictured here with "Pepper," is exploring deception and human-robot interactions. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

“As robots become more integrated in human society, their roles will transition into those of a collaborative nature rather than as tools used by people,” said Rosero, who works in Applied Psychology and Autonomous Systems (ALPHAS) Lab in the Human Factors and Applied Cognition Program. “In response, these robots must be programmed with enough social awareness to navigate complex interpersonal interactions to build relationships and maintain a positive interaction with the humans they share their environment with.”

Almost 500 participants took part in Rosero's study “Human perceptions of social robot deception behaviors: an exploratory analysis,” which he conducted with George Mason graduate teaching assistant Harris Kelly and psychology professor Elizabeth Phillips. This study gauges how likely participants are to accept a lie told by a robot in various situational contexts and is one of the three manuscripts that comprise Rosero's dissertation.

Participants ranked specific scenarios involving robot deception and evaluated how deceptive the lie was, whether they approved of the robot’s actions, and if the robot’s behavior could be justified. The study placed these scenarios into three different environments: medical, domestic, and retail.

“The goal is to examine human perceptions of AI and robot collaborations across different complex social interactions,” explains Rosero, who received an MA in psychology from George Mason in 2022. “This study is one of two that examine moral norms in robots and how in breaking these moral norms, humans accept and justify the robot's behaviors.”

Each environment presented a unique quandary for the participant. For example, in the medical environment, the robot lied to a patient with Alzheimer’s, telling the patient that her deceased husband was coming home. In the other environments, the robot was evasive rather than uttering false statements.

In the domestic environment, the robot did not reveal to the individual that they were being secretly filmed. And in the retail environment, the robot did not disclose that it was capable of completing an assigned task and didn’t require human assistance. Overall, participants widely believed the robot’s lie in the first scenario, but once the robot’s capacity for deception and manipulation was revealed, they became less trusting. They also were more likely to say that the robot’s behavior in the medical environment was justified than in the other two scenarios.

“Any technology that is designed with the intention of being utilized by people is an intersection of that technology and the humanities,” said Rosero. “Our challenge as psychologists is to design experiments that properly explore this interaction to provide direction to the development of these technologies in the real world.”

Technology’s ability to potentially conceal its true capabilities remains a concern of Rosero, as a focus on human-robot dynamics continues to fuel his research. "I am planning on defending my dissertation in the summer, and I am hoping to continue doing human factors research,” says Rosero. “My goal is to conduct impactful research that can assist people in their interactions with cutting-edge technology.”

When offering advice to students in an age of artificial intelligence and its advancements, Rosero recommends understanding “the practical applications of your work.”

“As an applied psychologist, one of the most important questions I ask myself is how my research can be applied in the real world,” he said. “It is important to understand how your work helps to build upon the current knowledge of the field and how it could impact the development of the larger technology in society.”

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Artificial Intelligence

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Alumni

Bird flu: What you need to know

Mary Cunningham — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:12:26 +0000

Bird flu: What you need to know Mary Cunningham Fri, 02/07/2025 - 14:12

February 7, 2025

The first death in a person infected with avian influenza (H5N1), commonly referred to as bird flu, was confirmed on January 6 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Louisiana, following 66 confirmed infections in humans. Health officials have identified cases of bird flu in humans and livestock in multiple states across the United States.

Nine states have reported cases in both humans and livestock, while an additional eight states have reported outbreaks exclusively in livestock. In total, 17 states have confirmed the presence of bird flu, including poultry farms in Maryland and Virginia. Thus far, there have been no reports of bird flu in Washington, D.C.

Updated reports in February are warning that a newer strain of avian flu (D1.1), previously only found in humans and birds, has now been detected in dairy cattle in Nevada. This mutation is different from the 2024 outbreak of avian flu (B3.13) that has been circulating across the U.S. Keeping the public informed about bird flu and educating people about ways to reduce the risk of infection is a public health priority.

Amira Roess, professor of global health and epidemiology in the College of Public Health, offers updated insight and clarity about the disease. Roess is an epidemiologist who studies emerging zoonotic (animal to human) infectious diseases and their risk factors. She was a leading source of public information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Roess served as the science director of the Pew Policy Commission on Industrial Food Animal Production, an epidemic intelligence service officer at the CDC, and a consultant on preparedness and response to H5N1 bird flu in 2006.

Should humans be concerned about contracting bird flu?

The risk to the general public remains low. So far, health officials have not identified or confirmed reports of person-to-person transmission of avian influenza. Those who work in close proximity to animals are at the greatest risk for infection. This includes individuals who care for backyard, noncommercial poultry flocks.

Fortunately, most human cases have been mild. However, we are worried for those individuals with underlying conditions coming into contact with the virus because their risk of severe illness and death is high. In addition to the increased risk, the virus is more likely to mutate as it lingers in immunocompromised patients. We worry that mutations will arise that make the virus more easily transmissible between humans and more deadly.

The individual in Louisiana who died was immunocompromised, and the strain identified in that individual appears to have mutated in them. This individual was infected while caring for their domesticated backyard poultry.

Are eggs and chicken safe to eat right now?

Yes, as long as they have been properly prepared for consumption. There has been no evidence in the U.S. of bird flu infections from properly cooked eggs, chicken, beef, or pasteurized milk. Uncooked (raw) and undercooked eggs, poultry, beef and unpasteurized milk can cause illness. Heat from cooking food properly kills bacteria and viruses, including avian flu. The best precaution is to ensure all meat is cooked thoroughly (see the CDC's safer foods table), stick to milk products that have been pasteurized, and separate raw food items from cooked.

Why is there an egg shortage at my grocery store?

This strain of bird flu is deadly to poultry. When the virus is detected, poultry on that farm are removed from the flock to stop the virus from spreading rapidly between poultry, other animals, and humans. Egg farms across the country are suffering from the loss, which has dwindled the production of eggs. Quite simply, fewer birds mean fewer eggs that can make it into our grocery stores. The demand for eggs cannot be met and so prices rise.

How did the disease get from birds and livestock to people?

There are many ways diseases spread from animals to people, directly and indirectly. Touching a contaminated animal, including pets and domesticated livestock, or being exposed to bodily fluids or feces where the animal has been, can result in transmission.

What we’re primarily seeing in this current outbreak is that agriculture workers and those working with poultry are coming into contact with poultry and livestock that have been infected with bird flu. We are also seeing that cats drinking unpasteurized milk from infected cows are becoming infected and dying from H5N1. At the same time, the FDA has asked pet food companies to consider making sure that pet food contains no raw products since they recognize the general risk to pet health from the consumption of raw animal products.

What are the symptoms of bird flu in humans?

Symptoms of this outbreak are like those of other seasonal infections. Redness of the eyes, congestion, cough, sore throat, body and headaches, and slight fever are the most common. In some cases, redness of the eyes was the only symptom present. Severe cases, which are rare, may include higher fever, difficulty breathing, and even unconsciousness.

How is bird flu diagnosed? Is there a test for bird flu, like there is for the flu and COVID-19?

Infection is determined by testing a swab of the nose or throat using specific laboratory tests to detect the virus. Because outward signs are so similar to other influenza strains and respiratory illnesses, bird flu can be confused with other illnesses. If you think you have bird flu you should see your health care provider as soon as possible. They can diagnose you and determine the next steps and treatment.

How can we prevent bird flu from further spreading?

We know that those at the greatest risk of infection are agricultural workers and people in close proximity with infected animals. Be vigilant around animals, especially dairy cows and poultry. If you suspect an outbreak among animals, avoid contact with the animals and report it to your local health department immediately. Contact your health care provider or state and local health departments to request a test if you believe you may have already been exposed. Quarantine and be sure to avoid people as much as possible while waiting for results.

As the virus continues to spread, the risk of people coming into contact with it increases. Those who are immunocompromised, or in close quarters with those who are, should exercise extra caution. Get the flu shot, make sure to eat healthy foods, get adequate sleep and try to reduce your stress levels. All of this will reduce the risk of infection and if you are infected this can help lessen disease severity.

MEDIA INQUIRIES: For reporters who wish to speak to Amira Roess about bird flu or other emerging diseases, please email media contact Michelle Thompson at mthomp7@gmu.edu.

Amira Roess is a professor of global health and epidemiology at ��AV's College of Public Health, Department of Global and Community Health. She is an epidemiologist with expertise in infectious diseases epidemiology, multidisciplinary and multi-species field research and evaluating interventions to reduce the transmission and impact of infectious diseases. Roess currently oversees several longitudinal studies to understand emergence and transmission of zoonotic infectious diseases globally, including the emergence and transmission of Campylobacter (with support from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), MERS-CoV (with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation), and the development of the microbiome during the first year of life. She studies links between food animal production and emerging infectious and zoonotic diseases emergence globally, and mHealth (especially apps) technology integration and evaluations to reduce the impact of infectious disease outbreaks, promote health care, and help reduce disparities.

About ��AV

��AV is Virginia’s largest public research university. Located near Washington, D.C., Mason enrolls more than 40,000 students from 130 countries and all 50 states. Mason has grown rapidly over the past half-century and is recognized for its innovation and entrepreneurship, remarkable diversity, and commitment to accessibility. In 2023, the university launched Mason Now: Power the Possible, a one-billion-dollar comprehensive campaign to support student success, research, innovation, community, and stewardship. Learn more at gmu.edu.

About College of Public Health at ��AV

The College of Public Health at ��AV is the first College of Public Health in Virginia and a national leader in inclusive, interprofessional, public health research, education, and practice. The college is comprises public health disciplines, health administration and policy, informatics, nursing, nutrition, and social work. The college offers a distinct array of degrees to support research and training of professionals dedicated to ensuring health and well-being for all. The college’s transdisciplinary research seeks to understand the many factors that influence the public’s health and well-being throughout the lifespan.

The college enrolls more than 1,900 undergraduate and 1,300 graduate students in our nationally recognized programs, including 5 undergraduate degrees, 7 master’s degrees, and 4 doctoral degrees, and 10 certificate programs. Our graduates are uniquely prepared to thrive in an increasingly multicultural, multidisciplinary, community-focused public health landscape.

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Bird flu: What you need to know

Should humans be concerned about contracting bird flu?

Are eggs and chicken safe to eat right now?

Why is there an egg shortage at my grocery store?

How did the disease get from birds and livestock to people?

What are the symptoms of bird flu in humans?

How is bird flu diagnosed? Is there a test for bird flu, like there is for the flu and COVID-19?

How can we prevent bird flu from further spreading?

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