AI CoLab and Research Fellows

The AI CoLab is the collaborative interdisciplinary research lab of Kenyon's Integrated Program in Humane Studies (IPHS). Faculty and students work side by side on funded research at the intersection of AI, the humanities, and the social sciences. Humanities and social science students rarely get what STEM students take for granted: the chance to join a real research lab, work on a team, and contribute to projects larger than a class assignment. The AI CoLab was created to change that.

Research Fellows can apply after completing at least two AI IPHS courses. The lab completed a $60,000 IBM-Notre Dame Tech Ethics Lab grant (one of eleven internationally), benchmarking AI decision-making in juvenile recidivism contexts. Current projects include the Schmidt Sciences "Archival Intelligence" initiative, a $330,000 grant to build AI tools that can rescue endangered archives using a smartphone photo. The test case is the New Orleans Jazz Museum, whose century-old materials span soundtracks, handwritten scores, photographs, and documents in Creole and Cajun French, languages most AI models have almost no training data for. The team includes scholars from Columbia, Berklee, and LSU.

Lead faculty researchers: Katherine Elkins (PI) and Jon Chun (co-PI).

AI CoLab Research Fellows

Fellows work alongside faculty on the current AI CoLab projects.

Students who have taken at least two AI IPHS courses at Kenyon are invited to apply to become AI CoLab Research Fellows. Contact Professor Kate Elkins at elkinsk@kenyon.edu for details. Kenyon alumni fellows include Olivia Frey and Miles Shebar.