2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The opportunity to develop completely new engineering curriculum is uncommon as many new undergraduate engineering programs are derivatives of traditional engineering disciplines. One area that provides such opportunity is artificial intelligence (AI). The field of AI has grown rapidly in the last decade. AI has impacted and will continue to impact all fields of knowledge, industry, government, and society, fundamentally changing the status quo. The body of knowledge and skills required to design, develop and evaluate computation systems using AI technology requires a distinct set of courses from multiple disciplines. A recent survey found “artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are the most popular Ph.D. specialties among graduates in the computer science, computer engineering and information fields.” This demand at the graduate level has begun to filter down to the undergraduate level as seen by the development of baccalaureate AI degrees at several peer institutions. Unlike these peer institutions with only one AI degree, [institution] has decided that at least two AI degrees are needed to meet the student demand and interests, in addition to offering AI minors.

This paper describes the development of a new baccalaureate AI Engineering degree and associated minor that were designed to provide students with the mathematical and algorithmic foundations of AI techniques, along with hands-on experience using AI techniques and foundational models to design and construct software solutions to complex problems. The curriculum includes coursework in computer science, mathematics, statistics, computational modeling, machine learning and symbolic computation. Students study algorithms, design and develop software systems, and apply this knowledge and experience to address applications of AI to complex problems. Complementing these engineering skills with a broader perspective is an understanding of the issues required to develop responsible AI that benefits society. Elective coursework allows students to focus on deeper topics, ranging from machine learning to vision and language. During the process, input from faculty, students, and industry worked to shape the contours of the novel program, melding areas of computer science, computational science, data science, electrical engineering, mathematics, and statistics to prepare program graduates to ethically and responsibly engineer artificial intelligence systems of the future. Challenges and opportunities from the curriculum development and deployment process are chronicled with a view of informing and encouraging similarly minded curricular innovations across the organizational field.