When Antonina Mitrofanova, associate dean of research and associate professor of biomedical informatics, first began shaping initiatives in her role as co-director of Rutgers’ Center for Biomedical Informatics and Health Artificial Intelligence, she kept returning to a question—What could Rutgers School of Health Professions do with artificial intelligence (AI) that no one else could?
“AI is upon us,” said Mitrofanova. “We can’t escape it. Instead of fighting it, why not embrace it and use it in a smart way, to our advantage?”
SHP is uniquely positioned to use the new and growing field of AI to its advantage. With a strong research program, but with most faculty on the teaching track, Mitrofanova began to develop an innovative idea to combine the two: using AI in the classroom as a teaching tool and creating scholarship from it by measuring the results.
“By using AI in an intentional, specific way in the classroom, our faculty can run mini-clinical trials,” Mitrofanova said. “If we give a group of students AI tools and compare the outcomes to those that don’t have it, faculty can generate research and publish their results.”
Mitrofanova introduced the initiative at SHP’s annual Research and Scholarship Symposium in November 2024 and identified four faculty leads, each exploring a unique AI application:
The leads will run their pilots during the 2025 fall semester and meet biweekly to share progress, learnings, and student feedback. Mitrofanova expects these trials to inform a larger rollout, potentially as soon as spring.
“The sky is the limit,” Mitrofanova said. “We can do so many projects for so many specialties. But the key is to move forward thoughtfully, think about the ethical implications, generate scholarship for our faculty, and ensure we are building the skills our students need as clinicians.”
—Antonina Mitrofanova Associate Dean of Research Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics
The long-term goal is to make AI-supported teaching an ongoing feature at SHP, with a growing library of tested, ethically designed tools. Once the groundwork is set, she envisions seeking support from philanthropic organizations for funding.
“AI is not here to replace us, it’s here to enhance and augment what we do,” said Mitrofanova. “But we have to build our program in an intentional way.”
That philosophy includes identifying where AI tools excel as well as areas where they may not perform as well. Mitrofanova plans to measure feedback to ensure that the teaching tools are benefiting both students and faculty, as well as which tools may work better for in-person or online courses or for specific specialties and degree tracks.
