Dean’s Awards for AI Research Development

Artificial intelligence is creating unprecedented opportunities to accelerate public health discovery, transform how we learn from complex health data, and improve health at the population level. Recent advances already show how AI is changing health and public health research: helping researchers learn from complex and fragmented data, anticipate health risks, tailor interventions to people and communities, accelerate labor-intensive research tasks, and evaluate the reliability, fairness, and usefulness of AI tools in real-world settings. For a structured overview of major ways AI is advancing health research, with concrete examples, see Examples of AI Innovation in Health and Public Health Research.

To catalyze AI-enabled public health research across the School, the Dean’s Office, in partnership with the Translational AI Laboratory for Health (TRAIL4Health), has established the Dean’s Awards for AI Research Development.

The awards will support a cohort of faculty-led, early-phase research projects organized around important public health or scientific questions where AI could meaningfully strengthen discovery, analysis, intervention design, translation, or research practice. Applicants may already have AI collaborators or technical capacity, but this is not required at the time of application. Through the two-year cohort model, TRAIL4Health will provide scientific and technical AI support, including helping awarded teams refine project scope, assess data and infrastructure needs, identify gaps or opportunities in the AI strategy, and, where appropriate, co-develop AI-enabled solutions tailored to the project’s scientific or public health question. The Dean’s Office of Research Strategy and Innovation will support program coordination and grant development, including helping position projects for future external funding.

Awarded projects will receive up to $50,000 per year for 2 years in project-specific funding and participate in a two-year cohort-based program that includes up to approximately 25% FTE equivalent TRAIL AI staff support, AI consultation, cohort-based learning, technical workshops, grant development support, and access to relevant infrastructure resources, such as Columbia/CUIMC’s HIPAA-compliant AWS and Google Cloud enterprise environments, where appropriate. The program is designed to help projects generate preliminary results, strengthen their AI strategy, and position investigators for future external funding, while also building shared AI research capacity across the School.

The program especially welcomes projects that explore emerging AI capabilities, including the development, adaptation, training, or evaluation of domain-specific foundation models, as well as agentic AI systems that can support research workflows, hypothesis generation, data integration, intervention design, or public health translation. These approaches should be tied to a clear public health or scientific question.

Timeline

August 31: Application deadline
September: Application review
September 30: Funding decisions announced (at least two will be awarded to junior faculty)

October onward: Selected projects begin onboarding with TRAIL4Health and the Dean’s Office of Research Strategy and Innovation.

Eligibility: All full-time Columbia Mailman faculty with primary appointments in the School are eligible to apply.

Program Goals

The program seeks faculty-led projects that:

Start with an important public health or scientific questions where AI could meaningfully advance the work;
identify the data, expertise, infrastructure, or partnerships needed to move the project forward;
generate preliminary results or proof-of-concept AI-enabled approaches that support future external funding;
contribute, where feasible, to shared resources, workflows, examples, or collaborative capacity that strengthen Mailman’s AI research ecosystem.

Application

Applications should be brief and structured and must be submitted through the designated Google Form. The form will ask applicants to describe the project team, public health problem and opportunity, data resources and readiness, potential AI opportunities and support needs, expected contributions to the Mailman AI research ecosystem, budget, and future funding pathways.

Application Deadline: August 31, 2026, at 5:00 pm.

To apply, please complete the form and forward applications and all supporting documentation to:

Kam-Meng Tchou-Wong, PhD
Executive Director, Research Strategy and Innovation
kmt2159@cumc.columbia.edu

Apply Now

Budget Guidance for Applicants

Applicants should submit a brief budget for the project-specific funding of up to $50,000 per year for 2 years. The budget should directly support the proposed scientific and public health aims and focus on activities that will generate preliminary results, strengthen the project’s AI strategy, and position the team for future external funding.

Allowable budget items include, as appropriate:

student, trainee, research assistant, or project staff support;
data-related activities;
project-specific computing, storage, software cost;
participant, stakeholder, or community engagement activities;
specialized project-specific consultation not otherwise covered through program-level support;
travel, meetings, or dissemination costs directly related to the project;
other justified expenses to complete the proposed early-phase work.

Selected projects will also be supported through broader program infrastructure, including TRAIL AI staff support, AI consultation, cohort meetings, technical workshops, and program coordination. Applicants should therefore use the project budget for resources needed to advance the specific research question and AI-enabled work proposed by the investigative team.

For additional information about what to expect after a project is selected, visit the AI Initiatives page on the TRAIL4Health site.