James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence
Fiscal Year 2024-2025
Dear Donor,
This has been an extraordinary and fast-moving year for AI. Innovations in AI models, reasoning, and human-like interaction are transforming how we teach and conduct research.
At the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artifcial Intelligence, we’ve embraced this wave—launching new courses, building privacy-frst humanoid robots, and pioneering applications in education and mental health.
We are deeply grateful to donors who support the James Silberrad Brown Center; their vision makes our work both possible and impactful. Philanthropy fuels our mission to ensure that AI is trustworthy, helpful, and a force for good.
Aaron Elkins, Ph.D.
Director, James Silberrad Brown Center for AI Research Associate Professor, Management Information Systems
Celebrating Shared Success
Statistics of Interest
Supported 15 undergraduate and 12 graduate students through staf roles, mentorship, volunteer opportunities, and course project participation.
Hosted two Management Information Systems (MIS) faculty members and one lecturer for research collaboration.
Submitted three research grant proposals and fve academic papers, with three currently under review.
Filed one invention disclosure with SDSU’s Technology Transfer Ofce. Developed new AI research areas and capacity, including:
Stable difusion for image generation
Edge AI for mobile robots and low-power devices
Quantization and distillation workfows
Video-language model development
Agentic AI tools and architectures
Face tracking and computer vision for robotics
Prompt engineering and transformer attention modeling
Low-latency speech-to-speech models for human-robot interaction
Recent Highlights
Launched MIS 429: Artifcial Intelligence, now part of the undergraduate MIS curriculum. Established new collaborations with the College of Engineering and the Department of Computer Science through student projects and mentorship.
Served as a pilot site for SDSU’s new cyberinfrastructure initiative, with Director Aaron Elkins appointed as a cyberinfrastructure fellow.
Integrated SDSU’s cyberinfrastructure into the Center’s research and instructional workfows. Expanded and renovated over 350 sq. ft. of Center space, including a redesigned lab, collaboration areas, and student seating.
Appointed Aman Chada, Amazon tech leader and former NVIDIA/Qualcomm engineer, as the Center’s frst generative AI fellow. He gave a campus seminar and will join the MIS Advisory Board. Developed Aztech Prime, a secure robotic platform that advances beyond commercial systems to support future research.
Center Excellence
Launched MIS 429, appointed a Generative AI Fellow, and expanded research capacity— advancing AI integration across education, research, and industry at SDSU.
Michael Todasco, Ph.D.
Title: Visiting Fellow, James Silberrad Brown Center for Artifcial Intelligence at SDSU College: Fowler College of Business
Achievement: Visiting Fellow Mike Todasco hosted a free online course, Turn Data Into Action with AI, through SDSU Global Campus. He was a panelist for "Unlocking AI's Potential," hosted by The Corporate Director's Forum, and led a "Generative AI for Accountants" workshop.
“Thank you to Visiting Fellow Mike Todasco for generously sharing his time and expertise in the free Turn Data Into Action with AI course through SDSU Global Campus, empowering learners to harness AI for real-world impact.