Fairfield University Leads NSF-Funded Collaboration to Strengthen AI Ethics Education

Fairfield Leads NSF-Funded AI Ethics Collaborative Research Project

Fairfield University has been awarded a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant as the lead institution on a collaborative initiative to advance AI ethics education. Total funding across Fairfield and partner institutions is nearly $400,000. Sidike Paheding, PhD, chair and associate professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Computing, serves as principal investigator, with partners at Indiana Tech and Prairie View A&M. David Schmidt, PhD, associate professor of management in the Charles F. Dolan School of Business, will serve as senior personnel.

"Throughout this project, we aim to advance AI education and promote responsible AI development and use. By enhancing AI education, we seek to foster safer, more secure, and trustworthy AI technologies," said Dr. Paheding.

Dr. Schmidt underscored the importance of ethics in technical curricula: "Among its many challenges, AI poses significant ethical issues that need to be addressed in computer science courses. This project will give faculty practical, hands-on teaching tools to explore these issues with their students."

Why this matters for researchers and educators

The project integrates ethical analysis directly into AI coursework to produce practitioners who can build secure, trustworthy systems. Rooted in Fairfield's Jesuit Catholic mission of forming men and women for others, the work serves the national interest by improving how ethics is taught alongside algorithmic methods.

What the team will build

• An open-access repository of AI ethics case studies to support instruction and student decision-making.
• Gamified learning modules for AI courses that make ethics scenarios concrete and testable.
• Structured classroom discussions anchored in real cases, empirical evaluation, and reproducible teaching materials.
• Graduate student mentoring, with external evaluation and an advisory board to ensure quality and transferability across institutions.

Leadership and collaboration

Dr. Paheding will guide design and implementation, develop the gamified modules, mentor graduate students, manage the project budget, and act as the primary contact for the independent evaluator and advisory board. Fairfield is collaborating with principal investigators at Indiana Tech and Prairie View A&M, with Dr. Schmidt contributing expertise at the intersection of management, policy, and responsible AI.

Funding details

• Total award (collaborative): nearly $400,000 over three years.
• Fairfield award: $231,958 - NSF Award #2518485, in collaboration with Prairie View A&M (NSF Award #2518486) and Indiana Tech (NSF Award #2518487).

For context on national frameworks informing responsible AI practices, see the NIST AI Risk Management Framework here. Explore NSF's award database for collaborative grants here.

Institutional context

Fairfield University hosts the Patrick J. Waide Center for Applied Ethics and the Charles F. Dolan School of Business's AI and Technology Institute, bringing together experts who study the practical trade-offs between technical performance, safety, and accountability.

What to expect next

As the project progresses, faculty can expect open-access case studies and ready-to-run modules that fit into existing AI and computer science courses. The materials will be designed to be adaptable across institutions and course levels.

If your team is building AI literacy and needs practical coursework, see curated AI learning paths by role here.