The PAIR program has now completed for the 2025-2026 academic year. Recruitment to join PAIR as a mentee or mentor in Fall 2026 will open at the beginning of the Fall 2026 semester!Â
📣  If you are a CMU undergraduate who would like to be notified about future PAIR events, please feel free to subscribe to our mailing list hereÂ
PAIR connects CMU undergraduates from any major or background with graduate student mentors who help them learn what AI research is, how to get involved as an undergraduate, and how to pursue research careers.
Our mentors come from across SCS departments and work in areas spanning robotics, machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, human-computer interaction, computational biology, AI ethics, and more!
In addition to one-on-one mentoring, we host the following events:Â
weekly office hours where students drop in with questionsÂ
networking events and panels to learn about AI research
Mentors in this program provide high-level guidance to help mentees explore AI research, identify their interests, and find a lab/project if the student decides they are interested in starting research at CMU. Typically, students and mentors meet at least once a month for ~30 min to check in on goals.Â
AI research is a broad category of scientific research related to understanding and building computational foundations of intelligence in machines. This can encompass fundamental questions about learning, perception, reasoning, and embodiment, among others, as well as applied research that uses scientific insights to solve real-world problems.Â
Examples:
Formalizing foundations of learning from a theoretical perspective
Advancing algorithms for self-driving cars to navigate noisy environments
Training robots to interpret the world around them and manipulate objects
Developing natural language processing algorithms for dialogue systems
Predicting health conditions using patient data
CMU has a vibrant intellectual community of faculty and PhD students doing AI research at the frontier of virtually every subfield of AI. Pursuing undergraduate research here is a great opportunity to expand your perspective on AI research, work on open problems in the field, and build skills in analysis, critical thinking, and problem-solving that are transferrable to any future path you might choose. Undergraduate research is also a meaningful way to explore multiple AI areas to develop both breadth and depth during your undergraduate years.Â
Mentoring enables graduate students to share knowledge and experience with others, who can then benefit from it in their own research careers. Mentoring allows graduate students to pass along what they have learned about navigating research careers, graduate school and fellowship applications, and day-to-day academic life. Many mentors, in addition, find that mentoring sharpens their own thinking about their work.Â
PAIR exists to connect CMU undergraduates to mentors, promote access to information about research career paths, and provide guidance to assist undergraduates in the following areas:Â
Exploring AI research areas and identifying interestsÂ
Pursuing research opportunities in university and industry labs
Approaching graduate school, internship, and fellowship applications
Launching research careers