Throughout the 2025-2026 academic year, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) at UMass Amherst will bring together leading voices from campus, industry, and beyond for a dynamic series of talks, workshops, and interactive events exploring the role of AI in the social sciences.
This series will spark conversations on how AI can be used responsibly and ethically—as a tool for teaching, as a driver of new research, and as a force reshaping our economy and society. Students, faculty, alumni, and community members will all have opportunities to engage, question, and imagine what the future of AI means for us. We will explore four main themes: Teaching and Learning with AI, AI and Social Science Research, The Future of Work, and AI and Society.
This series will help ensure that AI on campus is approached with ethical responsibility, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a focus on preparing students for the future. Most importantly, it will create space for our community to think critically and creatively about AI's impact on the world. Join us throughout the year as we learn, debate, and build together.
Hilke Schellmann, Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, journalism professor, and author of The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired, and Why We Need To Fight Back Now, joins us to discuss how AI has taken over the world of work, creating one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time.
This keynote webinar features Alexander "Amac" Macgillivray, Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer during the Biden administration. Macgillivray discusses his experience helping to develop AI policy, potential future directions for AI technology, and explores approaches to regulation.
This interdisciplinary seminar explores how artificial intelligence is being used in social science research. Speakers include Lauren McCarthy and Doug Rice, legal studies, Jesse Rhodes and Emma Cooper, political science, Brenda Bushouse and Santiago Virgüez-Ruiz, public policy and political science, and Virginia Patridge and Joe Pater, CDSAI Data Core and linguistics.
Karl Rethemeyer
Dean
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Saulo DePaula
Associate Dean of Administration and Finance
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Jen Lundquist
Senior Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mikayla Viscione
Associate Director of Events and Projects
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Justin Gross
Director of Data Analytics and Computational Social Sciences, Professor of Political Science
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Henry Renski
Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Doug Rice
Professor of Legal Studies
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Juniper Katz
Assistant Professor of Public Policy
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Leah Wing
Senior Lecturer II of Legal Studies, Director of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Wayne Xu
Associate Professor of Communication
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Carolina Rossini
Professor of Practice, School of Public Policy, and Director for Programs, Public Interest Technology
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Michelle Trim
Senior Teaching Faculty
Manning College of Information and Computer Science
Kristen Helmer
Director of Programming for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, Senior Lecturer
Center for Teaching and Learning
Luke Bloomfield
Senior Lecturer of Resource Economics
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences