Please share with your final year undergraduate students and your master's students.
Applications are now Open for USC ORAI: An Interdisciplinary
PhD Certificate Program at the Frontier of AI for Decision-Making
Sponsored by an NSF National Research Traineeship grant, the ORAI program at the University of Southern California (USC) is an interdisciplinary PhD certificate program in Operations Research (OR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) that aims to train students in doing research at the interface of the two fields. Among other skills, students will be trained to:
- design responsible (robust, interpretable, private, and fair) AI and ML systems using OR techniques;
- use AI and OR to solve decision-making problems informed by data, including data that may be scarce, biased, noisy, or subject to distribution shifts; and
- understand, apply, and extend cutting-edge methods that synergize the strengths of machine learning and discrete optimization techniques.
ORAI engages students in research, possible deployment, and commercialization of technologies that integrate OR and AI to address problems that cannot currently be solved by any one discipline in silo. Examples of research questions that students will work on are: Is it possible to create differentially private optimization algorithms? Can we leverage OR tools to create interpretable AI and ML models under distribution shifts? Can we improve the state of the art in decision-aware learning?
ORAI is the first graduate interdisciplinary program between AI and OR in the world. It builds on the unique strengths of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and leverages the expertise of USC faculty in the Computer Science and Industrial & Systems Engineering departments, who have a track record doing interdisciplinary research in ORAI.
All students who are admitted to either the Computer Science or Industrial & Systems Engineering PhD programs at USC may apply to join the ORAI program, so make sure to apply by December 15 to either program! There are no citizenship requirements for trainees, so students from all countries are welcome. We particularly welcome applications from candidates from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.
At USC, all students who are admitted to our PhD programs are guaranteed at least 4 years of funding provided they make good progress in their studies. Students who are US citizens, nationals, or permanent residents are additionally eligible for the prestigious ORAI program fellowships.
The ORAI PhD Certificate is awarded for completing, among other things:
- interdisciplinary research in OR and AI
- 4 courses at the interface of OR and AI
- a seminar course about the science, application, and collaborative approaches of ORAI, and
- workshops on ethics and entrepreneurship.
For more information on the program, see https://sites.google.com/usc.edu/usc-nrt-orai/. For specific questions, please contact Dr. Phebe Vayanos.
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Phebe Vayanos
Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair
Associate Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Computer Science
Co-Director | CAIS Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society |
www.cais.usc.eduUniversity of Southern California | Viterbi School of Engineering
University Park Campus | Office OHE 310L
phebe.vayanos@usc.eduhttps://sites.google.com/usc.edu/phebevayanos/------------------------------