AI for Scientists and Engineers Summer Academy 2025
Event Details
Dates: July 7, 8:30 AM – July 25, 2025, 4:30 PM
Location: Central Campus Classroom Building (CCCB), Room 2460
Address: 1225 Geddes Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Target Audience: Academic researchers, university faculty across biological sciences, engineering, environmental and earth science, physical sciences, and social sciences
Prerequisites: College level math and statistics (prior coding experience is NOT required)
Requirements: Participants are expected to bring a laptop for programming components of the academy
Academy Overview
The AI for Scientists and Engineers Summer Academy is designed for academic researchers, including university faculty, in a wide range of domains including biological sciences, engineering, environmental and earth science, physical sciences, and social sciences. Participants will learn the mathematical foundations of machine learning (ML), critically assess the data used in AI models, evaluate and validate ML model outputs, and understand strategic considerations for incorporating AI into research workflows. The prerequisites are college level math and statistics; prior coding experience is not required. Specific topics include supervised and unsupervised learning, neural networks, causal inference, and science-informed machine learning models.
The Summer Academy consists of three weeks of instructions, with different focuses. One can choose to attend any or all weeks; however, weeks 2 and 3 require some prior knowledge of AI / ML.
Meals & Refreshments
Light breakfast options will be available daily. A dedicated lunch reception is planned for Wednesday each week.
Program Structure
Week 1: Concepts and Applications
Monday, July 7 – Friday, July 11, 2025
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM *Subject to change
Focus: The conceptual understanding of AI and its applications in domain research.
- Day 1: Foundations of AI and Essential Math/Stats Concepts
- Day 2: Supervised Learning
- Day 3: Unsupervised Learning, Clustering, and Dimensionality Reduction
- Day 4: Neural Networks and Deep Learning
- Day 5: Foundation Models for Domain Research, Challenges of Using AI in Research
Week 2: Implementations of AI for Research with Python
Monday, July 14 – Friday, July 18, 2025
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM *Subject to change
Focus: The implementation of ML models in a Python environment.
- Day 1: Scientific Programming in Python
- Day 2: Data Cleaning
- Day 3: Building Machine Learning Pipelines
- Day 4: Building Machine Learning Pipelines (continued)
- Day 5: Foundation Models and Open Source Models
Week 3: "Passion Week" – Advanced Topics of AI Methods with Applications in Domain Research
Monday, July 21 – Friday, July 25, 2025
8:30 AM – 4:30 PM *Subject to change
Focus: Advanced topics of AI and its applications in domain research.
- Day 1: Advanced Deep Learning and Generative Models
- Day 2: Causal Inference
- Day 3: AI for Scientific Discovery
- Day 4: Physics-Informed Machine Learning
- Day 5: Uncertainty Quantification