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Last Updated: Nov 10, 2026, 10:08 AM

NAIRR Classroom Award Supports Hands-On AI Safety and Security Education

CARBONDALE, Ill. — June 24, 2026

Illustration of university students collaborating around a laptop with symbols for AI safety, privacy, code review and ethical decisions.
AI-generated illustration of students exploring AI safety and security.

Dr. Abdur Rahman Bin Shahid, Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and director of the SHIELD Lab, has received a classroom computing allocation award through the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)'s National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot program.

The classroom allocation runs from June 24, 2026 through December 31, 2026.

As artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday life, students need more than basic familiarity with AI tools. They need to understand how these systems work, where they can fail, and how to use and develop them responsibly. From ChatGPT-style assistants and AI-generated code to automated decision-making systems, today's students are entering a world where AI safety, security, ethics, and trust are becoming core computing skills.

The NAIRR Classroom allocation will support Dr. Shahid's upcoming course, AIP 290 / CS 290: Ethics, Safety and Security of AI, which will serve students in both the B.S. in Artificial Intelligence+ (AI+) program and the Computer Science (CS) program. The course is designed to give students hands-on experience with real-world AI safety and security challenges, including prompt injection, hallucination, bias, privacy, AI-generated code review, responsible use of generative AI, and trustworthy AI system evaluation.

Through access to NAIRR-supported computing resources, students will be able to move beyond classroom discussion and directly experiment with AI systems in a guided learning environment. They will work with classroom-appropriate datasets and examples to explore how AI systems respond to different prompts, how errors or unsafe outputs can appear, how AI-generated code should be reviewed, and how technical and ethical choices shape the reliability of AI systems.

This classroom project will help expand AI education at SIUC by giving students in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science direct exposure to national-scale AI cyberinfrastructure. It will also support the School of Computing's broader mission to prepare students for the responsible development and use of secure, trustworthy, and human-centered AI systems. The award listing is available through the NAIRR Pilot website: https://nairrpilot.org/projects/awarded?_requestNumber=NAIRR260237

 

Media Contact: School of Computing Communications • socinfo@siu.edu