Dr. Rongjie Liu Awarded Interdisciplinary Seed Grant
Dr. Rongjie Liu Awarded Interdisciplinary Seed Grant
Dr. Rongjie Liu, an assistant professor in the University of Georgia’s Department of Statistics and a faculty member in the online Master of Science (M.S.) in Applied Data Science, has been awarded an Interdisciplinary Seed Grant from the UGA Institute of Artificial Intelligence.
Originally announced by the UGA Franklin College Department of Statistics, the grant pledges to support Liu’s collaborative research project, titled “AI-driven multimodal biomarker discovery and reasoning in depression and related mental health disorders.”
The project brings together researchers across the university, including Chao Huang from the UGA College of Public Health and Tianming Liu from the UGA School of Computing, and explores how artificial intelligence can help identify and interpret biological indicators associated with depression and related mental health conditions by integrating multiple forms of data.
The Institute for AI’s Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grants Program supports multi-disciplinary teams of faculty pursuing collaborative AI research. The program is designed to provide early funding for projects that can develop into larger, externally funded research initiatives.
“The scope of the selected projects highlights the fact that AI is no longer the domain of just a few but that recent advances have transcended traditional barriers — it is now a fundamental bridge connecting all academic disciplines,” said Prashant Doshi, executive director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence. “These seed grants are the spark for interdisciplinary research and innovations that will eventually benefit the citizens of Georgia and beyond.”
Dr. Liu’s research focuses on Bayesian statistics and learning-based methods, with applications in neuroscience and engineering. Areas of expertise include Bayesian modeling, machine learning, reinforcement learning, causal inference, and image data analysis.
Dr. Liu joined the University of Georgia in 2024 after previously serving as an assistant professor at Florida State University.