Join us for an immersive week-long summer school focused on the cutting-edge advancements and practical applications of deep learning and AI. This program is designed for enthusiasts and professionals with a strong foundation in programming, specifically those familiar with Python and modern development environments. Each day is structured to provide a comprehensive blend of theoretical foundations, practical insights, and hands-on experiences, utilizing Python, PyTorch, and VSCode.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn from leading experts, engage in thought-provoking discussions, and explore the latest trends and challenges in the field. The program kicks off with a 鈥淒eep Learning Jump Start,鈥 introducing the basics of neural networks and essential optimization techniques. As the week progresses, participants will delve into practical issues with real-world data, including data augmentation, diagnostics, and troubleshooting. Advanced models like transformers and large language models will be explored in depth, along with a dedicated day to visual AI, covering diffusion models and advanced generative techniques. We conclude with critical aspects of AI ethics, including privacy, fairness, transparency, and model robustness. This summer school promises a rich learning experience, combining theoretical knowledge with practical applications, ensuring participants are well-equipped to tackle contemporary challenges in AI.
New this year, we鈥檙e introducing an AI Workshop Track that runs in parallel with the main lecture series, turning Stevenson Hall into a studio for discovery. Guided by experienced AI coaches鈥攕cholars who build and deploy deep-learning systems every day鈥攖hese sessions replace slides with keyboards, pairing brief concept primers with coding labs, model-building sprints, and code reviews. You鈥檒l iterate through mini-projects that sharpen core skills like data wrangling in pandas, custom layer design in PyTorch, prompt engineering for LLMs, and deployment tips for VSCode + Docker, all while receiving real-time feedback tailored to your current level. Whether you鈥檙e eager to solidify fundamentals or push into advanced experimentation, the AI Workshop Track provides a collaborative sandbox where ideas migrate from whiteboard to working prototype before day鈥檚 end鈥攅nsuring you leave not just inspired, but armed with reproducible notebooks and a toolkit you can drop directly into your own research or product pipeline.
What: AI Summer School / 2025
Where: Stevenson Hall on Vanderbilt鈥檚 Campus.听
- Main Hall: Stevenson 4309
- AI Workshop Track: Stevenson 4327
When: August 11-14, 2025 / 9 am 鈥 4:30 pm听
Coffee & Food: Of course!听
On Site Logistics
For a full campus map, please see: /map/
Campus Locations
Detailed View of Room Locations
Keynotes
From Classroom to Boardroom: How Students Delivered $72M in Business Value with AI
AI in Practice: Behavioral Design and Feedback from the Drive-Thru Frontier
Meet the Speakers
Meet the Coaches
Program at a Glance
TIME | Monday听 August 11听 | Tuesday August 12 | Wednesday August 13 | Thursday August 14 |
8:30 am | Registration and Breakfast | |||
9:00 am | Opening Remarks | Transformers from 0 to 60 鈥 Jesse Spencer-Smith 听 | Keynote: Wendy鈥檚 Fresh AI, Will Croushorn, AI Product Leader. AI in Practice: Behavioral Design and Feedback from the Drive-Thru Frontier 听 | Open Research Day, Call to Action 鈥 Jeffrey Neul |
9:30 am | Keynote: Francois Peltier | Beyond Accuracy: Likelihood, Uncertainty, and Statistical Thinking in AI -听Bobby Bodenheimer | ||
10:00 am | Vibe Coding for Scientists 听鈥 Jesse Spencer-Smith 听 | A Crash Course on Optimal Transport and Wasserstein Distances听鈥 Soheil Kolouri听 | Human Tumor Atlasing Data at Scale: A Foundation for AI-driven Precision Medicine -听Ken Lao | |
10:30 am | AI Basic: From Linear Regression to Neural Network听鈥 Yuankai Huo 听 | Domain Identification, Integration, and 3D Reconstruction Using Spatial Transcriptomics Data -听Mazie Zhou | ||
11:00 am | Diagnostics and Dashboard 鈥 Yehyun Suh听 | The Shape of Data in Noise: Diffusion Models as a Programmable Prior听- Lianrui Zuo | AI-guided precision surgery听鈥撎 | |
11:30 am | VMAC 鈥 Timothy Hohman | |||
12:00 听pm听 | Lunch | |||
12:30 pm | ||||
1:00 pm | Neural Network Architectures 鈥撎 听 听 | Timeseries Transformers: Basic Concepts and Applications in Neuroscience听-Chang Li | ADVANCE, AI-enable EHR phenotyping听鈥 Wei-Qi Wei听 听 | Segment Anything: Capabilities, Challenges, and Research Directions听鈥 Hao Li听 听 |
1:30 pm | Phenotype Harmonization 鈥 Thomas Lasko | |||
2:00 pm | Neural Network Architectures 鈥撎 听 听 | One Model, Reasoning Many Worlds: Quantizing the Multi-modal Revolution 鈥 Vishwesh Nath | Scaling Intelligence: How Foundation Models Are Redefining AI听鈥 Yihao Liu | Safeguarding privacy in AI for health: challenges and opportunities听鈥 Luca Bonomi |
2:30 pm | AI and Archaeology: Vision Transformers for Feature Detection in Satellite Imagery at Continental Scale 鈥 James听Zimmer-Dauphinee | |||
3:00 pm | Introduction to Accre 鈥 Lindsey Fox &听Michael McAllister 听 | Mentor Match听 听 | Alumni/IAP Panel 听 | Algorithm Fairness 鈥 Melinda Aldrich听 |
3:30 pm | Making the Ethically Right Choices in AI听鈥 Susannah Rose听 | |||
4:00 pm | Networking | Networking | Networking | AI Governance 鈥 Mark Williams, Law |
Program Details
AI Workshop Track
| 听 | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday |
| 9:30 | Single track | Single track | Single track | Optimal Transport for Practitioners: A Hands-On Tutorial |
| 10:30 | How To Use FLUX AI | ComfyUI Tutorial | Deep learning methods or pipeline for spatial transcriptomics data | Pair Programming with CoPilot: Familiarization with GitHub and AI Tools | |
| 11 | Resilient Distributed Machine Learning | Political Economy of AI | Spotify AI Recommendations | |
| 11:30 | ||||
| Noon | LUNCH | LUNCH | LUNCH | LUNCH |
| 1:00 | Eyes on your model: Log everything and anything as you train | Single track | Hello AI World: Your First Steps with environments and IDEs | Art and creativity in an AI-driven world |
| 1:30 | Single track | ChatGPT prompting for a personalized professional website with GitHub pages | Sandbox Science: Testing Big AI Ideas on Tiny Datasets | |
| 2:00 | Containerization for Science: Making Your Work Portable and Reproducible | Single track | ||
| 2:30 | Single track | Single track |
Previous Years of AI Summer School
-
2024 AI Summer School
Learning the Art of AI -
2025 AI Summer School
Build the Future 鈥 in Bold Colors