WashU is building faculty capacity to advance research, scholarship, and education in an age of AI.
Over the next three years, WashU will recruit more than 30 faculty as part of a university-wide investment in the future of AI research and education. Led by the Office of the Provost in partnership with the deans of six participating schools, the initiative will advance four strategic areas that represent WashU’s strongest opportunities to shape the future of AI across science, society and creative practice.
These hires will bring together scholars with deep expertise in their fields to advance AI methods and pursue shared questions with colleagues across disciplines.
30+
Faculty
3
Years
4
Areas of focus
6
Schools
The Four Thematic Areas
Agentic AI: Governance, Society, and Institutions
The most consequential questions about AI in the years ahead will ask how agentic systems behave at scale (in markets, institutions, and democratic life) and how society governs them.
This cluster will recruit scholars whose research addresses the technical modeling of multi-agent systems and the legal, regulatory, and institutional structures needed to oversee them. We are particularly interested in work engaging high-stakes contexts where WashU has existing strength, including population health, democratic institutions, and biotechnology.
Human Values, Creative Practice, and AI
Generative AI raises fundamental questions about what it means to be human in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, including how we understand authorship, craft, ethics, production and aesthetic judgment.
This area will bring together scholars who critically examine these questions through a humanistic lens as well as creative practitioners, including artists, designers, architects, filmmakers and writers, whose studio-based work engages with and helps shape the next generation of creative tools.
AI-Driven Imaging Science: Imaging from Molecules to the Universe
WashU’s strength in biomedical imaging, supported by a world-class academic medical center, positions the university to lead the next generation of AI-driven imaging science across disciplines.
This cluster recruits scholars advancing foundation models, generative modeling and inverse-problem methods, and applying them across fields including biomedical sensing, biodiversity and environmental monitoring, the built environment, population health and food security.
AI for Science and Engineering: Modeling the Physical World
The physical sciences and engineering are being transformed by AI methods that can model, simulate and reason about physical systems at scales previously out of reach.
This cluster recruits scholars whose work combines advances in AI and computational methods with deep knowledge of the scientific and engineering domains in which they are applied. That work may span areas such as climate science, materials and digital twins, as well as AI-accelerated discovery in fields such as structural biology, astrophysics and quantum systems. We are especially interested in scholars using AI to connect information across temporal and spatial scales.
Apply
Faculty searches within the four thematic areas are conducted by the participating schools. For open positions and application information, visit the faculty hiring page for the school that best aligns with your work:
| WashU Law | McKelvey School of Engineering (coming soon) |
| Brown School (coming soon) | Arts & Sciences |
| Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts (coming soon) | Olin Business School (coming soon) |
Candidates should have an established record of research, scholarship or creative practice that aligns with one of the four thematic areas.
AI at WashU
An academic community harnessing AI with purpose.
Across WashU, AI is opening new avenues for research and discovery, enabling scholars to ask questions and tackle problems in ways that were not previously possible. At the same time, we are reimagining education to prepare students to lead in a world increasingly shaped by AI.
To learn more about the AI initiative, discuss potential partnerships, or connect with faculty working in one of the four thematic areas, contact the WashU Digital Intelligence & Innovation (DI2) Accelerator at di2accelerator@wustl.edu.
Infrastructure for AI
WashU provides faculty with access to leading AI tools, secure research environments, and advanced computing resources, backed by the technical expertise needed to build, test, and scale cutting-edge AI research.
