Morgan State Researchers Receive $116,000 TRAILS Seed Grant to Develop Responsible Public Health AI Certificate

Morgan State University researchers have received $116,000 in seed funding from the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS) to develop and study a new Certificate in Responsible Public Health AI. Of the total award, $77,271 will support research and project activities at Morgan State University.

The project, “Training the Next Public Health Workforce,” is led by Dr. Robin Butler, Assistant Professor in Morgan State’s School of Community Health and Policy, and Dr. Vishnu Kumar, Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. Hassanatu Blake of the University of Maryland.

The research team will develop a four-course certificate focused on responsible uses of artificial intelligence in public health. Students will help design the curriculum alongside faculty and public health professionals, giving researchers an opportunity to study how participatory learning influences AI literacy, trust, and confidence. The curriculum will emphasize explainability, fairness, and accountability while preparing a more diverse public health workforce to make informed decisions about the use of AI.

The award is part of the fourth round of seed funding from TRAILS, a four-university research institute focused on trustworthy artificial intelligence. TRAILS brings together the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Morgan State University, and Cornell University to study how trust can be incorporated into the design, development, deployment, governance, and oversight of AI systems.

TRAILS is funded through a $20 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The institute examines what trust in AI looks like, how technical AI solutions can be developed to support trust, and which governance and policy approaches can sustain responsible AI use. Its broader goal is to shift the development of artificial intelligence toward approaches grounded in ethics, human rights, and meaningful participation from communities affected by AI systems.

At Morgan State, the project is supported by Dr. Virginia Byrne, Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Advanced Studies, Leadership, and Policy (DASLP) and Morgan State’s TRAILS Site Lead.

The new award reflects Morgan State’s growing role in research on trustworthy AI, public health education, AI literacy, and workforce development. It also demonstrates the value of interdisciplinary collaboration across public health, engineering, education, and technology as researchers work to ensure that emerging AI systems are developed and used in ways that serve diverse communities.