DMIC Lab Awarded Good Systems Seed Grant for COPD AI Research

The DMIC Lab has been awarded a Good Systems Seed Grant from UT Austin’s Bridging Barriers initiative, one of six interdisciplinary faculty teams selected in the 2026 funding competition.

The project, Knowledge-Informed Multimodal Responsible AI for COPD, is led by Edward Castillo (PI, Biomedical Engineering), Hairong Wang (Co-PI, Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering), and Ying Ding (Co-PI, School of Information). The team will develop an AI framework that improves chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) modeling while reducing the “black-box” opacity of current approaches — making clinical decisions more transparent, trustworthy, and patient-centered.

Each Good Systems Seed Grant provides up to $50,000 in seed funding for one year to catalyze interdisciplinary collaborations and position teams for future external support.

Read the full announcement: Good Systems Awards Seed Grants to Six Faculty Teams Advancing Human-Centered AI.