Heard Libraries’ Digital Lab awards 2025 seed grants to trio of projects with AI focus

Generative AI will play a key role in three new campus projects being developed thanks to early-stage funding from the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries’ Digital Lab. 

Earlier this semester, the Digital Lab invited members of the Vanderbilt community to apply for seed grants of up to $4,000 each to support new and emerging digital projects for development during the spring and summer of 2025. Eligible initiatives included those that utilize innovative technologies, skills and techniques in areas such as artificial intelligence, augmented or virtual reality, digital storytelling, archiving and preservation, 3D scanning and printing, and more. These projects must be culturally important, globally impactful, and preservable in perpetuity.   

“A primary goal of the seed grant program is to connect Vanderbilt researchers with the Digital Lab’s wealth of resources and staff expertise,” said Andrew Wesolek, chief digital strategist and senior director of the Digital Lab. “These seed grants are also designed to lead to opportunities for broader external funding.” 

The Digital Lab’s 2025 seed grant recipients are as follows: 

Yinru Long, a doctoral student in clinical science in the Psychological Sciences program, will create a chatbot that uses generative AI to deliver evidence-based positive emotional interventions. Long works under the mentorship of Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development Autumn Kujawa and is primarily interested in using multimodal approaches to advance personalized interventions for mood disorders in marginalized populations, specifically racial and sexual minority adolescents.  

Long will develop the chatbot’s functionalities and user experience/interface by working with both Digital Lab and Research IT staff. She then plans to use the piloted tool to apply for subsequent funding from the National Institutes of Health. 

HD McKay, librarian for business at the Walker Management Library, and Mario Avila, assistant professor of the practice of management at the Owen Graduate School of Management, are collaborating with Michael Groenendyk, a librarian at Concordia University in Canada, to develop a tool to generate industry reports using publicly available data and AI prompting. This database will allow small businesses to access relevant information without a paywall.

As business librarian, McKay provides information consultation, research and instructional support to the Owen and Vanderbilt communities, focusing on marketing, operations, health care and entrepreneurship. She plans to apply for a larger grant in Canada this fall after initial work on the database is completed.

Ashwin Sadashiva, a research scientist at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems, will use AI to de-identify digital images of children’s facial expressions so that models can be trained to more accurately interpret the expressions and emotions shown. His research focuses on affective computing, learning technologies, computer vision applications and human-computer interaction.  

Sadashiva will work with the Digital Lab to build out a user interface that can show the changes and differences of the AI-generated faces, helping to demonstrate the AI content’s efficacy. He plans to seek future funding from the National Science Foundation as well as private foundations. 

The Digital Lab’s 2025 seed grant projects will be celebrated in a public showcase this fall.  

“The Digital Lab is excited to work with this year’s recipients to get their nascent projects off the ground and continue collaborating on further funding efforts to bring their innovative ideas to fruition,” said Cazembe Kennedy, director of projects and partnerships for the Digital Lab. 

Learn more about the Digital Lab’s previously funded seed grant projects here.