AI Days 2025: A Recap

🎉 AI Days 2025: A Recap 🎉

March 5–6, 2025 • Vanderbilt University Student Life Center

AI Days 2025 expanded on the success of our inaugural AI Training Day, growing into a two-day event that explored the full spectrum of artificial intelligence—from foundational concepts to advanced research applications. With over 300 participants joining in person and online, we brought together faculty, students, staff, and industry partners to explore how AI is transforming research, education, and professional practice.

Held at the Vanderbilt Student Life Center, the event featured multiple concurrent tracks, hands-on workshops, keynote presentations, and our first-ever AI Showcase—an evening of demonstrations highlighting innovative work from across the university.

Watch Day 1 Livestream | Watch Day 2 Livestream

Thank You to Our Community

This event would not have been possible without the dedication of our speakers, workshop leaders, and organizing teams across the College of Connected Computing, Data Science Institute, and our many partner organizations. A special thanks to everyone who attended, asked questions, and contributed to the collaborative spirit that defined both days.

Day One Highlights: Foundations and Frontiers

• The New Age of Models: Jesse Spencer-Smith and Dr. Charreau Bell opened the conference with sessions on reasoning models like DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI o3, and explored how AI agents are shifting from text generation to autonomous task completion.
• VAILL Panel – Code and Compliance: Legal experts from across industries discussed emerging AI governance frameworks, offering practical guidance on navigating the evolving regulatory landscape.
• Keynote – Ben Hunt on Semantic Signatures: Vanderbilt alumnus and Epsilon Theory author Ben Hunt delivered a keynote on using generative AI to identify patterns of meaning in historical texts—bridging linguistics, investment analysis, and the humanities.
• AI Showcase: The evening concluded with demonstrations from past AI competition winners, Data Science projects, and emerging innovators—a celebration of Vanderbilt’s AI work in action.

Day Two Highlights: Applications and Practice

• AI in Protein Science: The Center for Applied AI in Protein Dynamics presented a full track exploring how AI is reshaping drug discovery, from structure prediction to understanding disease mechanisms.
• Hands-On Model Training: Umang Chaudhry led participants through end-to-end AI model training, including Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning techniques and multi-GPU considerations for scaling.
• AI for Nonprofits: A four-part workshop series equipped nonprofit leaders with practical AI skills—from grant writing enhancements to donor engagement strategies.
• Fireside Chat – Modern RAG: Curtis Northcutt (CEO of Cleanlab) and Dr. Charreau Bell discussed retrieval-augmented generation and the evolving best practices for building reliable AI systems.

Featured Speakers

A huge thank you to our keynote and featured speakers:

• Ben Hunt, CIO at Second Foundation Partners – “Reading the Rhyme of History: Using Generative AI to Identify the Semantic Signatures of Primary Texts”
• Curtis Northcutt, CEO of Cleanlab – Fireside Chat on Modern RAG
• Jules White, Professor of Computer Science – “Agents Are for Everyone with Amplify AI”
• Jesse Spencer-Smith, Chief Data Scientist & Associate Dean, CCC – “The World Changed: AI Overview”
• Dr. Charreau Bell, Senior Data Scientist, DSI – “Agents and Actions: A Shift from Text to Tasks”
• Myranda Shirk, Senior Data Scientist, DSI – “Energy Consumption of AI Models”
• Umang Chaudhry, Data Scientist, DSI – “Hands-On End-to-End Training of AI Models”
• Abigail Petulante, Data Scientist, DSI – “Small Models, Powerful Solutions” & “Reinforcement Learning”

Missed the Event? Catch Up Now!

Couldn’t make it to the event? We’ve got you covered. Both days were livestreamed and are now available on our YouTube Channel:

📺 Watch Day 1 (March 5th)

📺 Watch Day 2 (March 6th)

Thank You to Our Sponsors

AI Days 2025 was made possible with support from industry leaders committed to advancing AI education and research:

Oracle • HP • Lenovo • IBM • Microsoft

Vanderbilt Partners

This event brought together major schools, institutes, programs, and offices concerned with AI at Vanderbilt:

College of Connected Computing (CCC) • Data Science Institute (DSI) • School of Engineering (VUSE) • ACCRE • AI Legal Lab (VAILL) • Learning Innovation Incubator (LIVE) • VALIANT • AdvancedED • Center for Applied AI in Protein Dynamics • School of Nursing • Arts & Science AI Grand Challenge

Stay Connected

We’re just getting started. Stay tuned for more workshops and events designed to foster collaboration and innovation in the field of AI. Your engagement is what drives us forward.

If you have any feedback or questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out at datascience@vanderbilt.edu.

Together, We’re Shaping the Future of AI

Our journey continues, and we’re excited to have you with us. Thank you for being a part of our community—and we’ll see you at AI Days 2026!