Mary Purugganan

This 2-credit elective course explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing writing and communication within STEM and medical fields. Students will gain practical experience with AI tools to assist in tasks such as literature searches, summarization, editing, and presentation creation. Emphasis is placed on ethical considerations, including plagiarism, data privacy, intellectual property, and bias. Through discussions, short assignments, and hands-on practice, students will learn to responsibly integrate AI into academic workflows. This course is suitable for students from all STEM disciplines, providing skills applicable across fields in natural sciences, engineering, and pre-medicine.

To prepare graduate students for writing and publishing independent research, this course examines the genre of the primary literature article; analyzes successful writing; explores ways of managing references and avoiding plagiarism; and addresses issues of authorship, submission, and peer review. Students will receive peer feedback on documents in preparation.