Friday, April 17, 2026 — Students showcase AI work through Lightning Talks and E-Posters, judged by faculty and industry partners. Evening: Ghost in the Machine film screening. 52 Spotlight registrants.
| Time | Session | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 4:00 – 6:00 PM | Student Spotlight & Innovation Showcase | Kiewit Hall |
| 7:00 PM | Ghost in the Machine film screening | Carolyn Pope Edwards Hall |
Student Spotlight — Two parallel formats: Lightning Talks (3-minute presentations on a problem, an AI approach, and the impact) and E-Posters (digital posters displayed on screens). Judged by faculty and industry partners. Awards in both categories.
Ghost in the Machine — Film screening organized by Adrian Wisnicki and the NU AI Institute. Capacity: 379.
The poster and e-poster event was inspirational. Twelve students presented work grounded in real-world problems: probiotic removal, weed identification and removal, novel drug discovery, and novel materials discovery. The range and the quality made clear that students are already using AI to push real research forward.
Winners:
The lightning talks were exciting. Seven presenters covered a wide range of innovations and AI applications, and all of them did a fantastic job. We could only recognize three.
Winners:
Seth Polsley, Jamilla Teixeira, Alisha Bevins, Zane Gernhart, Bobby Brauer, and Asa Stone. Thank you for lending your time and attention. The quality of the evening was built on yours.
The film screening went well. About twenty students turned out with little time to plan or promote, coming from a mix of English and Engineering, reflecting the connections Santosh Pitla and Adrian Wisnicki have in both. The conversations were the best part of the night: AI questions beforehand, and afterward strong reactions to how informative the film was, how important its information, and how well it structured the larger history of AI. People lingered to talk long after the credits.
Adrian put the turnout in perspective with a Velvet Underground analogy: a small audience can have outsized influence, because each listener tends to go on and start something of their own. The organizers are planning a fall encore with more lead time, and would love to bring the filmmakers to campus to speak if that becomes possible. The NU AI Institute is only two months old, so this is an early chapter.