UW–Madison is aiming to recruit as many as 150 new faculty members over the next three to five years for an AI-focused research initiative, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. UW–Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced the creation of the Wisconsin Research, Innovation and Scholarly Excellence (RISE) initiative during last Thursday’s Board of Regents meeting.
The initiative’s primary area of focus is AI and the ways it is likely to affect human interaction; other areas of research will be announced at a later date. Roughly 50 new faculty members will be hired to work campuswide in areas including engineering, computer science, social sciences, humanities, and human ecology. The faculty additions will be funded by a mixture of growing revenue from recent UW–Madison research, enrollment growth, and philanthropy.
RISE will be led by Provost Charles Lee Isbell Jr., who has been studying AI for over 30 years.
