Summary
Shehu is an accomplished administrator, teacher, and scholar. She currently serves as George Mason’s Inaugural VP and Chief AI Officer in which capacity she also continues to provide leadership for the Institute of Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) for which she served as Associate Vice President for Research during 2022 and 2024.
Shehu also serves as an Associate Dean for AI Innovation in the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), where she is also a tenured Professor in the Department of Computer Science.
Source: CEC webpage
George Mason University – 04/09/2024 (01:18)
George Mason University has named Associate Vice President for Research for the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA) Amarda Shehu as the university’s inaugural vice president and chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO).
In this role, Shehu will lead the strategy and implementation of AI across research, academics, and partnerships for the university, maximizing opportunity and adoption in addressing the world’s grand challenges while leading on ethical considerations, governance, and risk mitigation.
Research Interests:
Artificial Intelligence, Stochastic Optimization, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Optimization for Deep Learning, Generative Models, Language Models, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biophysics.
OnAir Post: Amarda Shehu
News
Mason News – March 3, 2025
At last week’s Board of Visitors meeting, George Mason University’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.
About
Biography
Amarda Shehu’s research advances foundational investigations in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Her team is driven by a passion to push the barriers of their understanding of the physical and biological world. She says, “It is real-world, complex, wicked problems that prompt us to design novel AI and ML frameworks and algorithms. This is nowadays abbreviated as AI4Sience.”
She is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and a member of the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (VASEM). Shehu has received numerous awards, including the 2022 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the 2021 Beck Family Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Research and Scholarship, the 2018 Mason University Teaching Excellence Award, the 2014 Mason Emerging Researcher/Scholar/Creator Award, the 2013 Mason OSCAR Undergraduate Mentor Excellence Award, and the 2012 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award.
Her research is regularly supported by various NSF programs, the Department of Defense, as well as state and private research awards.
Source: CEC webpage
Degrees
- PhD, Computer Science, Rice University
- MS, Computer Science, Rice University
- BS, Computer Science and Mathematics, Clarkson University
Contact
Email: School
Locations
ashehu@gmu.edu
Room 4452
Mail Stop: 4A5
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-4135
Web Links
Videos
Welcome, Amarda Shehu | Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer
(01:18)
By: George Mason University
George Mason University has named Associate Vice President for Research for the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA) Amarda Shehu as the university’s inaugural vice president and chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO).
In this role, Shehu will lead the strategy and implementation of AI across research, academics, and partnerships for the university, maximizing opportunity and adoption in addressing the world’s grand challenges while leading on ethical considerations, governance, and risk mitigation.
Access to Excellence Podcast
(50:46)
By: George Mason University
In 2024, artificial intelligence dominated conversations across the globe from copyright lawsuits against AI art generators to developing legislation for artificial intelligence regulation.
On this episode of Access to Excellence, President Gregory Washington and George Mason’s inaugural vice president and chief AI officer Amarda Shehu discuss the research possibilities of AI and the role of higher education in AI training and development.
Exploring the Future of AI with GMU’s Dr. Amarda Shehu
(19:36)
By: Potomac Local News
In this exciting episode of the Potomac Local News Podcast, host Uriah Kiser sits down with Dr. Amarda Shehu, the Associate Vice President of Research for the Institute for Digital Innovation and inaugural Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO) at George Mason University.
Dr. Shehu shares her insights into the transformative power of artificial intelligence and her role in driving innovation at Mason. From integrating AI into education to its broader implications on the workforce and economy, this conversation explores how AI is shaping our communities, industries, and future.
Topics Covered:
What it means to be a Chief AI Officer in higher education
How AI is changing the way we learn, work, and innovate
Preparing students for the future workforce with responsible AI integration
The intersection of ethics and AI in education
Opportunities and challenges AI brings to the economy
Machine Learning Workshop
August 9, 2022 (09:02)
By: International Physics of Living Systems
Speaker: Amarda Shehu, George Mason University Talk: Very little data, some data, lots of data
Workshop: Foundations of Machine Learning and Its Applications for Scientific Discovery in Physical and Biological Systems June 2022 | Washington, DC Metro
KGML2020 Amarda Shehu Presentation
December 20, 2020 (28:23)
By: KGML Workshop
Amarda Shehu, George Mason University: “A Data-driven Journey in Macromolecular Structure, Dynamics, and Function”
Research
Summary
Source: CEC webpage
- 2023-2026: Learning Protein-ish: Foundational Insight on Protein Language Models for Better Understanding, Democratized Access, and Discovery. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
- 2023-2026: Bioinformatics: Linking Chemical and Biological Space: Deep Learning and Experimentation for Property-Controlled Molecule Generation. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
- 2023-2026: Furthering U.S. Government Cybersecurity and IT Modernization Leadership and Governance. A Congressionally-funded Community Project.
- 2022-2025: The cultural, economic, and institutional determinants of AI infrastructures and their consequences in global contexts. Funded by the Department of Defense Minerva Program.
- 2022-2023: Detection of Malware through Side Channel Analysis. Funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia Cyber Initiative.
- 2019-2023: Graph Generative Deep Learning for Protein Structure Prediction. Funded the National Science Foundation.
- 2019-2023: Automated Analysis and Exploration of High-dimensional and Multimodal Molecular Energy Landscapes. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
- 2021-2022: Mechanisms of Amyloid Interaction and Signaling through the Nicotinic Receptor. Funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia, Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Program.
- 2018-2022: Guiding Exploration of Protein Structure Spaces with Deep Learning. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
- 2018-2021: Statistical Inference for Molecular Landscapes. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
- 2019-2020: Evaluation of Molecular Structures via Deep Learning. Funded by the Jeffress Trust Awards Program in Interdisciplinary Research.
Shehu Lab
Our laboratory bridges two worlds. We advance foundational research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). What drives us is our passion to push the barriers of our understanding of the physical and biological world. It is real-world, complex, wicked problems that prompt us to design novel AI and ML frameworks and algorithms. This is nowadays abbreviated as AI4Sience.
Over the years, we have contributed novel stochastic optimization algorithms for exploring high-dimensional, non-linear variable spaces and modeling the complex, spatio-temporal dynamics of physical and biological systems, as well as the analysis of multi-basin energy/fitness landscapes. We continue to make contributions in both the foundations and applications of ML and deep learning in diverse disciplines, from the life sciences to engineering. Highlights of our recent work include optimization for deep learning, deep generative (latent variable) models in generative AI for modeling small and large molecules. Lately, we are advancing large language models for bio & health informatics.
We always ask two questions: how are we advancing foundational research; what scientific breakthroughs can we make with this foundational research? In answering these questions, we bridge worlds and communities. We are also deeply passionate about science for all and, in particular, broadening participation in computing to historically-minoritized groups of students and researchers.
Website: https://cs.gmu.edu/~ashehu/
Chief AI Officer
George Mason University’s Amarda Shehu appointed inaugural Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer
Article in Mason News– September 4, 2024
FAIRFAX, VA – George Mason University has named Associate Vice President for Research for the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA) Amarda Shehu as the university’s inaugural vice president and chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO). In this role, Shehu will lead the strategy and implementation of AI across research, academics, and partnerships for the university, maximizing opportunity and adoption in addressing the world’s grand challenges while leading on ethical considerations, governance, and risk mitigation.
“As the number one public university in Virginia and a top 10 U.S. university for innovation, as well as the first to offer a School of Computing and degree in cybersecurity engineering, George Mason is driven by inclusive access to research and education that provides insight and inspires solutions. There is an institution-wide recognition of the centrality of AI to the future of knowledge creation, scientific discovery, creative expression, workforce development, and campus operations,” said Andre Marshall, George Mason University vice president for research, innovation, and economic development. “By collaborating with other units to build an AI growth roadmap for the university, Dr. Shehu will be a transformative force in taking George Mason to the top of this field and partnering in the region to advance the Commonwealth of Virginia.
As George Mason’s inaugural Vice President and CAIO, and one of the first at a U.S. university, Shehu will spearhead university-wide research and programs, attract AI talent, and ensure compliance with ethical standards and regulatory requirements. Shehu will work with the university’s chief risk officer and chief information officer on tools and platforms, as well as governance to ensure data privacy and security. She will also collaborate with academic divisions on new majors and expanded coursework.
Shehu is a professor in the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Computing, where she also serves as an associate dean for AI Innovation. She is the inaugural founding co-director of George Mason University’s transdisciplinary Center for Advancing Human-Machine Partnerships. Shehu is lead PI on the George Mason-National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC) cooperative research and development agreement within the Department of Commerce in response to the 2023 White House Executive Order on AI. As part of the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact division’s leadership team, Shehu will continue to provide leadership for IDIA. A full biography is available here.
Shehu’s position comes at a time of rapid AI advancements at the university. In April 2024, George Mason launched the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC), which will serve as the focal point for research in autonomy, robotics, and AI. In fall 2024, the university will launch a graduate certificate that focuses on responsible AI. Earlier this summer, George Mason was awarded a $1 million grant to establish the nation’s first Center for AI Innovation for Economic Competitiveness, which will bolster the economic competitiveness of small and medium enterprises across Virginia. Much of the work in AI will take place at the Fuse at Mason Square, the university’s new state-of-the-art research and entrepreneurship hub for students, digital innovators, researchers, and regional businesses opening this fall.
