The Penn State AI Hub, a research hub housed under the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, has awarded 14 students, faculty and alumni with 2026 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Awards for their research projects, dissertations and innovations related to AI. Credit: Lee/Adobe Stock.
College of Engineering individuals receive six of 14 Penn State AI Awards
July 22, 2026
Editor's Note: A version of this article was originally published on Penn State News.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State AI Hub, one of the five research hubs housed under the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS), has recognized fourteen individuals, six of whom are from the College of Engineering, with 2026 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Awards for their AI-related innovations and contributions to society.
The Penn State AI Awards is an annual University-wide competition that celebrates research excellence in AI.
"This year brought a record number of nominations reflecting the growing impact of Penn State's AI innovations on the society,” said Vijaykrishnan Narayanan, Evan Pugh University Professor and coordinator of the awards.
The competition seeks nominations from any University staff or faculty member, student or alumni for four different awards given to researchers within the Penn State community. A panel of Penn State AI researchers reviews each nomination and selects the winners and runners-up for each award category.
"The Penn State AI Awards showcase members of the Penn State community who have made strides in AI research across diverse disciplines,” said Guido Cervone, ICDS director. “The AI Hub seeks to uplift and honor early-career or expert researchers who are making a difference. Through the AI Awards, we can take a moment to reflect on and recognize the novel and creative research ideas presented by students, staff, faculty and alumni at Penn State.”
The awardees from the Colllege of Engineering are:
AI Societal Impact Award
- Runner-up:Wangda Zuo, professor of architectural engineering, “AI for Sustainable AI: A Physics-Informed AI Framework for Sustainable Data Centers”
- Runner-up: Ajay Narayanan Sridhar, graduate student in computer science and engineering, “NaviSense: Advancing Independent Object Retrieval for People with Visual Impairments Using AI”
Best Undergraduate (Honors) Thesis or Senior Project Related to AI within Penn State
- Winner: Muyu Pan, who earned a bachelor's degree in computer science in 2026, “Reducing LLM Hallucinations through Learned Abstention and Group Relative Policy Optimization”
- Winner: Sabrina Adler, who earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics and a master’s degree in computer science and engineering in 2026, “PolliSense: Vision-Based Ecological Feature Extraction and Preference Learning for Pollinator Habitat Assessment”
Best Doctoral Dissertation in an AI-related Discipline within Penn State
- Winner:Malyaban Bal, who earned a doctorate in computer science and engineering in 2026, “Toward Efficient AI: Scalable Bio-Inspired Neural Architectures”
- Runner-up: Yusen Zhang, who earned a doctorate in computer science and engineering in 2025 and is currently a postdoctoral scholar at Columbia University, “Multi-Agent Systems in the Era of Large Language Models: Testbeds, Analyses and Methods”
“I feel incredibly honored to have received this award,” Bal said. “Penn State, along with my outstanding adviser and colleagues, provided me with an exceptional environment and the resources to pursue impactful research and share it with the broader AI community.”
Bal’s faculty adviser, Abhronil Sengupta, praised his work, which focuses on developing sustainable and computationally efficient AI architectures and algorithms that are inspired by how the human brain learns and works.
“It has been incredibly rewarding to witness Malyaban’s growth as a researcher throughout his doctorate,” said Sengupta, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science. “I am confident this award will serve as a launchpad for his future contributions to the field of AI.”
The Penn State AI Awards are coordinated by centers within the AI Hub, including the Center for Applications of Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Engineered Systems, the Center for Applications of AI and Machine Learning to Industry, Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Scientific Applications and Center for Socially Responsible AI.
See the full list of winners here.
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