The Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (NMDSI) has awarded five graduate students from the college funding through the organization’s summer Student Research Scholars Program.
Launched in 2023, the program helps student researchers gain practical experience working on interdisciplinary projects at their home campuses. As part of its eighth cycle, NMDSI received 57 proposals spanning 15 disciplines, highlighting growing cross-campus engagement in student AI and data science research. A partnership among UWM, Marquette University and Northwestern Mutual, NMDSI aims to establish Wisconsin as a national hub for data science and technology.
A committee subject matter experts reviewed the proposals and has awarded $77,500 funding to 24 student researchers for Summer 2026. Five of the 11 awards to UWM students were from the college, including:
Nayan Banik, computer science
Faculty Mentor: Mohammad Habib Rahman
“Simulation-Grounded Deep Learning for Safe Autonomous Mobile Manipulation in Underserved Community Healthcare Environments.”
Motakabbir Hossain, computer science
Faculty Mentor: Susan McRoy
“Creating an AI-Enabled Analysis Pipeline for Audio Recordings of Health Coaching to Promote Physical Activity for Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis.”
Sammie Omranian, computer science
Faculty Mentor: Susan McRoy
“AI Methods to Assess Signs of Professional Burnout in Communication between Health Coaches and their Clients.”
Raisa Nkweteyim, bioinformatics
Faculty Mentor: Lu He
“Disparities in Receipt and Timing of Initial Medical Nutrition Therapy Among Adults with Type 2 Diabetes in the ‘All of Us’ Research Program.”
Asif Al Zubayer Swapnil, mechanical engineering
Faculty Mentor: Mohammad Habib Rahman
“Exploring Vision-Language-Action Model Integration for Sensor-Augmented Embodied AI.”