CS Professor Matthew Stone has been awarded funding for his proposal, Community-led Language Technology for NJ: A Design Justice Approach.
This project brings together scholars from Critical AI and the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice to explore how emerging natural language processing (NLP) technologies can be harnessed by grassroots organizations in New Jersey. With a focus on speech recognition, machine translation, question answering, and related NLP tools, the initiative aims to support community-led efforts through a design justice framework.
The centerpiece of the project will be a workshop convening experts in computer science, spanning artificial intelligence, software engineering, and human-computer interaction, alongside community stakeholders. The workshop will surface new research questions, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and help position the university as a leader in socially responsive AI development. Through this work, the team seeks to elevate both the profile of the department and the broader school, while advancing equitable, community-centered innovation in language technology. Collaborators on this project include Lauren Goodlad and Chloe Kitzinger (Critical AI); Carlos Decena (Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice).
This grant is funded through the SAS Research in Academic Themes grant at Rutgers University, which supports innovative research projects led by full-time faculty. It provides funding for interdisciplinary studies that align with the strategic priorities of promoting an ethical, shared, and sustainable world. This grant encourages collaboration across various academic disciplines to address complex societal challenges.
Total Award Amount: $44,900
