BUFFALO, N.Y. – The University at Buffalo is leading two National Science Foundation (NSF) awards — together totaling $950,000 — to prepare the next generation of the U.S. workforce in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing.
Led by Wenyao Xu, PhD, the Carl V. Granger Endowed Chair Professor in UB’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the three-year awards build on UB’s strengths in AI and security and unite partners including the University of Georgia (UGA), placing UB at the center of a growing national training enterprise.
Hands-on cybersecurity and AI research for undergraduates
The first award, a $450,000 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site grant approved by NSF in May, will deliver intensive summer research training in cybersecurity and AI to 30 undergraduate students — 10 per year over three years — recruited from across the country.
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Xu serves as principal investigator, with Jun Xia, PhD, professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint program of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, as co-principal investigator.
Hosted under the theme “Frontier Technologies in Authentication and Biometrics,” the program applies AI to real-world security challenges, with student projects spanning micro-expression recognition, 3D finger-vein imaging, electrocardiogram-based continuous authentication, and cancelable biometric systems built from brainwave signals.
The grant marks the second renewal of UB’s REU site — a testament to sustained NSF confidence and to the university’s historic strengths in AI and biometrics. The program emphasizes broad participation, reaching first-generation college students, students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and those at institutions with limited research infrastructure.
Securing agentic AI for advanced manufacturing
The second award, a $500,000 NSF CyberTraining grant approved by NSF in October 2025, launches a new program on “Secure Agentic AI for Advanced Manufacturing,” jointly led by UB and UGA.
Xu serves as principal investigator, with Chi Zhou, PhD, professor in UB’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, as UB co-principal investigator, and Hongyue Sun, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Georgia, as a key collaborator leading the project’s effort at UGA, where he contributes complementary expertise in advanced manufacturing and intelligent systems. The three researchers have collaborated for a decade, building a productive, long-running partnership of which this award is the latest result.
Together, the UB–UGA team will train 54 graduate and undergraduate students nationwide through an eight-module curriculum and a hands-on cyberphysical testbed. They will learn to design, deploy and govern AI agents that integrate large language models, vision-language models and edge robotics with safeguards such as physics-informed machine learning to keep autonomous systems trustworthy. The effort builds directly on a recently completed UB CyberTraining program in cybersecurity for advanced manufacturing.
Building a national pipeline
“These two awards are about people as much as technology. We’re giving students across the country the hands-on experience to build AI systems that are not only powerful, but secure and trustworthy — the kind of talent our nation needs in cybersecurity, AI and advanced manufacturing. At UB, we’re proud to lead this effort alongside outstanding partners and to keep training the workforce that will shape these fields for years to come.”
Wenyao Xu, Carl V. Granger Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
