Conference Program
The final program for ARISE 2026 is listed below.
Day 1 Schedule — Thursday, October 1, 2026
| Start | End | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3:00 PM | 5:00 PM | Registration | CCIT First Floor Lobby |
| 4:00 PM | 5:00 PM | Welcome Refreshments | CCIT 397 |
| 5:00 PM | 7:00 PM | Dinner & Tech Transfer Talk —
Dr. Brian Shedd University of Texas Permian Basin (UTPB) Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer |
CCIT 397 |
Day 2 Schedule — Friday, October 2, 2026
| Start | End | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00 AM | 3:00 PM | Registration | CCIT First Floor Lobby |
| 8:00 AM | 9:00 AM | Breakfast | CCIT 397 |
| 9:00 AM | 9:30 AM |
Welcome & Opening Remarks Dr. Michael Mathias Provost and Senior Vice President, Frostburg State University Dr. Sudhir Singh Dean, College of Business, Engineering, Computing & Analytics Co-PI, NSF EPIIC-ARISE Award Dr. Xunyu Pan Professor, Department of Computer Science & Information Technologies Director, Appalachian Innovation Institute (AI²) PI, NSF EPIIC-ARISE Award |
CCIT 156 |
| 9:30 AM | 10:30 AM | Keynote Address —
Dr. Vandana Janeja University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Building Interdisciplinary Research Foundations Brick-By-Brick |
CCIT 156 |
| After Keynote |
Presidential Welcome & Appreciation Remarks Dr. Shadow JQ Robinson President, Frostburg State University |
CCIT 156 | |
| 10:30 AM | 10:50 AM | Coffee Break | CCIT 397 |
| 10:50 AM | 11:50 AM |
Faculty & Graduate Student Research Presentations — Session 1 10:50–11:10 AM — Engineering the Future: How AI Is Transforming Product Development Dr. Jamil Abdo 11:10–11:30 AM — The Future of Manufacturing in the AI Era Dr. Kaimiao Liu 11:30–11:50 AM — Constrained Behavior Tree Generation for Safe LLM-Driven Robot Navigation Mr. Jeremy Perando |
CCIT 156 |
| 11:50 AM | 1:00 PM | Lunch | CCIT 397 |
| 1:00 PM | 2:00 PM |
Faculty & Graduate Student Research Presentations — Session 2 1:00–1:20 PM — AI and Computing: Performance Bottlenecks and the Models That Challenge Them Dr. Yuechen (Peter) Chen 1:20–1:40 PM — TickTalk: Using Quantitative PCR and Mapping to Characterize Tick Populations and the Pathogens They Carry Dr. Rebekah Taylor 1:40–2:00 PM — Hemp Fiber Reinforcement for Concrete Applications Dr. Thomas Cadenazzi |
CCIT 156 |
| 2:00 PM | 2:30 PM |
CEI Presentation Dr. Stacy Wassell Director, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnership Signing Ceremony Memorandum of Understanding between Frostburg State University and Augmental World |
CCIT 156 |
| 2:30 PM | 4:30 PM | Innovation Expo: Student Posters, Demos, Awards & Regional Exhibitors | CCIT First Floor Lobby |
| Coffee Break | CCIT 397 | ||
| 4:30 PM | 4:35 PM | Event Wrap-up & Closing Remarks | CCIT 156 |
| 5:00 PM | — | ARISE 2026 Organizing Committee Meeting | CCIT 397 |