Gonzaga starts Informatics Institute to connect people and technology

By Catherine Ferguson SNJM

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn't coming. It's already here, quietly reshaping everything from how people work to how they think.

Preparing for this transformation in 2023, Gonzaga University secured a $5 million dollar gift from the David and Cathleen Reisenauer family to establish the Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology and recruit its director.

Gonzaga hired Shanchieh "Jay" Yang, a native of Taiwan, to direct the institute. He comes to Gonzaga with more than two decades of experience teaching and researching AI machine learning and cybersecurity in the U.S.

Prior to joining Gonzaga in August 2024, he served as the director of research at the Global Cybersecurity Institute and as department head of Computer Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Henrietta, N.Y.

Jay's new role requires both technology expertise and people skills.

"My job is twofold: first to shape the vision and mission of the institute, applying technology advances responsibly and aligned with Gonzaga's Jesuit mission, and second to bring stakeholders together for strategic partnerships—university faculty, deans, students and administrators, as well as external partners—to inform high impact and practical decision-making to solve complex real-world problems," he said.

Jay brings to his role as the institute's director his technology credentials, which include simulation, machine learning and large language models for predictive cyber intelligence, plus his curiosity for exploring the intersection of technology and the human experience. Those skills help Gonzaga and partner organizations advance AI-supported pedagogy innovation, experiential learning, critical discernment and accessibility features. They also help in research that develops predictive capabilities to strengthen business operations and cybersecurity.

Just as important, he also brings his people skills to the role.

"I always ask why things work as they do. I think about the audience, the learner, and I put myself in their position with empathy," he said.

In Taiwanese culture, it's not common for students to ask questions. They only listen to lectures, but Jay honed his questioning skills and empathy early by asking questions he thought other students might have, but might not ask.

He continued this mindset and practice in his doctoral studies in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas in Austin and his work as a professor at RIT, where he led the Council of Chairs to mentor and develop chairs and directors across disciplines and collaborated in research and teaching with faculty in humanities, business and education.

What he learned and practiced in his career developed into skills required to bring together diverse stakeholders with varied ways of reasoning at Gonzaga. He challenges and empowers colleagues to infuse AI into innovative and creative ways of learning and find new solutions to complex problems.

Even his Chinese name points to the skills that fit him for his position.

"The first Chinese character for my name—shan 善心—means kind heart and the second character—chieh     —means excellence," he explained.

"As I think about the institute, I am always interested in how humans learn," he said, giving an example the interaction between human reasoning and learning what AI can do.

 "I asked my young son how he would use generative AI to create a cat with sunglasses. He said that he first thinks about what a cat looks like and what sunglasses look like. He then looks for the nouns. Then, he thinks about what it means to create. He looks at verbs. Then he thinks about the style. Should it look like a real cat and real sunglasses, a cartoon character, something like anime or some other style?" he asked.

Generative AI reflects how humans react to queries, focusing on specific words and reacting to them. Responsible uses and advances of AI take into account human characteristics.

Jay's decision to move from RIT to Gonzaga came from a combination of professional possibilities and personal interests. As he researched Gonzaga and the nascent institute, he was excited about the opportunity to infuse data science and AI into liberal arts education.

Professionally, he felt the appeal of leading a new institute that gave him an opportunity to shape a responsible, values-based direction for innovation with new technologies and AI- and data-science-infused education. The role allows him to leverage his experience to build both innovative and socially responsible programs.

Gonzaga's reputation in basketball also appealed to him. He enjoys basketball and sports, especially coaching his son's basketball and baseball teams when his son was young.

He participates in basketball games with students, using the sport as a metaphor for his leadership style—facilitating opportunities and supporting others to achieve success.

Jay describes three pillars that sum up the institute's aim. Each has AI as a component. He listed the pillars, which must be coupled with Jesuit values and responsibility.

1) Academic innovation is about collaboration to develop AI-infused, humanity-centered academic programs that prepare students for diverse roles across industry sectors, like using AI to creatively develop cutting edge course curriculum.

2) Interdisciplinary research connects expertise across various schools and colleges within the university, focusing on AI-enabled endeavors, like researching how AI tech firms and environmental activists can work together to negotiate environmental concerns.

3) Strategic partnerships are cultivated with local and regional industries, government agencies and other community stakeholders to inform decision-making and solve complex, real-world problems, like using AI to generate solutions for rural health care and K-12 education.

Gonzaga's institute is unique in that it focuses both inward and outward. Most AI ethics centers in other universities are outward-focused—designed to relate to external partners in different types of agencies.

"We also focus inward, aiming to strengthen the university internally by fostering an environment where technological advancement is pursued in harmony with learning outcomes for every student, ethical responsibility and interdisciplinary collaboration," Jay said.

Even its name, the Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology, indicates this uniqueness.

One definition says that "informatics" harnesses the power and possibility of digital technology to transform data and information into knowledge that people use every day.

Gonzaga's April conference on "Value and Responsibility in AI Technologies" exemplifies the institute's vision. Its organizers—Anthony Fisher of the department of philosophy, and Amy Hyde Jay of the institute—developed the interdisciplinary program.

They collaborated with partners from Gonzaga's different schools, including some that don't seem at first glance to be connected to engineering and AI—law, business administration, education, health sciences and leadership studies.

Presenters, mostly from the Pacific Northwest, but also from as far away as Hong Kong, contributed diverse perspectives on the theme. While some were from fields directly related to technology, others came from political science, English, teacher education, religion, philosophy and commercial law—demonstrating that AI-infused and humanity-centered academic programs can be designed and promote humane values and social responsibility.

In five years, Jay envisions that the institute will help Gonzaga be "a leader in empowering students, faculty and external partners by infusing informatics throughout its curriculum in a creative, responsible way. Students from diverse disciplines will come to GU because of the leadership it offers, not just in engineering or computer science but in our approach to infusing modern information technology throughout every program for every student with every kind of interest," he said.

Finally, Jay sees AI as a way to deepen understanding of human reasoning and communication by leveraging the resources of large language models, which process, interpret, generate and augment human language.

He also notes that AI sometimes "hallucinates, which reflects how humans sometimes respond to unknown questions. We miss the boat if we let it run wild. We need to guide how humans advance, interact and innovate with AI with ethical values. AI is powerful so we must cultivate our own sense of value and responsibility in our interactions with AI tools."

In that way, AI can be seen as similar to other tools—a camera, a computer or musical instruments—which "are means of expression that give meaning to who we are as humans," Jay said.

For information, email informatics@gonzaga.edu or visit gonzaga.edu/informatics-and-applied-technology.