Awards

"AI Institute Assistant Professor Dr. Haihua Chen Awarded $859K Across Two New IMLS Grants at the Intersection of AI and Library Science"

Dr. Haihua Chen, Assistant Professor of Data Science (https://datascience.unt.edu/people/haihua-chen.html) and Director of the Intelligent Data Engineering and Analytics Lab (https://www.idealab-coi.com/) at the University of North Texas, has been awarded two new grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), totaling $859,000 over three years (2026–2029). Both projects advance the responsible use of AI in libraries and cultural heritage — one focused on workforce training, the other on public access to historical collections.

ORAL-AI: High Efficacy Content Representation and User Engagement of Oral Digital Collections with Multimodal LLMs

IMLS National Leadership Grants for Libraries | $490,396 | PI: Dr. Haihua Chen (UNT); Co-PI: Dr. Jiangping Chen (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Oral history collections — like the Veterans History Project's 110,000+ interviews — hold irreplaceable firsthand accounts, but hours-long recordings and inconsistent metadata make them difficult to search and explore. ORAL-AI will build and evaluate a multimodal AI framework that lets users search across transcript, audio, video, and image content simultaneously, while grounding every generated answer in verifiable source evidence to reduce hallucination and misrepresentation. The team will pilot the framework on three nationally significant collections — the Densho Digital Repository, the Library of Congress Civil Rights History Project, and the Veterans History Project — and rigorously test leading multimodal LLMs for accuracy, bias, and privacy risk before deploying open-source models locally, keeping sensitive collection data under institutional control. The project will culminate in usability studies with roughly 80 librarians, educators, and public users, and will release open benchmarks, guidelines, and training materials for the field.

Award Link: https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-259721-ols-26

ALiT: AI Platform for Librarian Lifelong Training

IMLS Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program | $368,408 | PI: Dr. Haihua Chen (UNT); Co-PIs: Dr. Junhua Ding (UNT) and Dr. Katherine Klein (UNT), in partnership with Amigos Library Services

Public librarians increasingly serve as frontline responders to complex, emotionally demanding situations — from de-escalating conflict to supporting patrons in crisis — yet most professional development remains limited to episodic webinars and on-the-job trial and error. ALiT addresses this by using generative AI to simulate realistic patron interactions that librarians can practice anytime, anywhere, receiving structured feedback and guided reflection in a safe, repeatable environment. The platform also functions as a knowledge-capture tool, preserving the tacit expertise of veteran librarians — de-escalation techniques, ethical reasoning, culturally responsive communication — before it's lost to retirement, and sharing it across libraries of all sizes, including small and rural systems with limited local training capacity. Building on a working pilot prototype, the team will develop a full six-layer platform and validate it through a 10-week training cohort of 30 librarians drawn from the Amigos Library Services network.

Award Link: https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/re-259877-ols-26  

AI research at UNT is driven by faculty from across disciplines who are exploring new ideas, solving complex problems, and preparing the next generation of AI innovators. Get to know the researchers behind this work, discover what inspires their research, and explore how their expertise is shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

Dr. Rattani and her team are developing the Open-Source Biometrics and Cybersecurity Ecosystem (OSBCE), a shared platform designed to make biometric and cybersecurity research more secure, reliable, and easier to evaluate. By bringing researchers together around shared tools, standards, and testing methods, the project aims to strengthen digital identity systems, protect privacy, and build greater trust in AI-powered technologies.

Dr. Haihua Chen from College of Information and Dr. Yan Huang from College of Engineering were named to the Dallas AI75 Class of 2026 in the AI Academic category. This recognition came during the Dallas AI75 receptions held alongside the Convergence AI Dallas Annual Conference at the Irving Convention Center on March 30-31. Dr. Chen and Dr. Huang were two of 13 individuals in DFW recognized in the AI Academic category. It reflects the impactful work happening in the academic community. The AI 75 highlights 75 of the most influential AI leaders in North Texas, spanning academia, industry, investment, and beyond.