The University of Notre Dame and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (UC Chile) held the first ND-UC Chile Winter School for Scientific Artificial Intelligence (SAI) in Santiago in January 2026, launching a new international training model to develop research and training opportunities at the interface of artificial intelligence and science and engineering between the two schools.
Hosted by Notre Dame’s Scientific Artificial Intelligence Initiative within the Data, AI, and Computing Initiative at UC Chile's San Joaquin campus, the inaugural program was structured as a three-day format, including two days of lectures and hands-on tutorials followed by a third day split between a student hackathon and a faculty workshop.
The winter school model is designed to connect classroom learning with research application, while creating a pipeline between undergraduate training, summer research, and doctoral study. The model fosters three linked goals: strengthening student exchange between the universities, providing doctoral fellows with meaningful teaching and mentorship experience, and accelerating cross-institution research collaboration through follow-on projects.
As the inaugural event, the Chile program extends the SAI winter school concept from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) at Mayaguez (RUM).
Across the school, Notre Dame faculty and SAI fellows delivered ten presentations on SAI opportunities and persistent technical bottlenecks in their fields. The program also included practical tutorials in scikit-learn and PyTorch, plus applied sessions on methods such as featurization, transformers, and flow matching for scientific use cases. A poster session and reception on day one created an additional venue for participant exchange across institutions.
Notre Dame participants included Brett Savoie, the Coyle Mission Collegiate Professor of Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and SAI Initiative director, Diego Gomez-Zara, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Alex Taflanidis, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences and director of graduate studies for Civil and Environmental Engineering, Robert Nerenberg, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, Diogo Bolster, the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Hydrology and Henry Massman Department Chair for the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, and Fanny Ye, associate director of applied analytics for the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and Galassi Family Collegiate Professor in Computer Science and Engineering.
Graduate fellows from the SAI initiative also contributed, including Andrew Schofield, Shashank Ramesh, and Joey Farmer. The event was organized in collaboration with UC Chile engineering faculty Juan Montes and Felipe Gomez Caro.
The third day expanded beyond technical instruction into institutional planning. Student teams advanced hackathon projects and presented outcomes in a joint closing session, while faculty working groups developed shared priorities in AI education and research. Sessions focused on AI literacy for domain scientists and engineers, AI-enhanced pedagogy, data infrastructure and standards, and domain-specific research challenges, followed by proposal-oriented small group work.
The school also drew leadership participation from UC Chile and Notre Dame's Santiago network. Engineering Dean Loreto Valenzuela participated alongside other university leaders, and Juan Esteban Montes, director of Notre Dame's Santiago location, joined the broader engagement around partnership development.
With the Santiago launch complete, organizers now have a working template for recurring ND-UC Chile SAI programming. Applications for next year’s program are expected to come in the Fall.
To learn more about the SAI Initiative’s winter schools, please visit sai.nd.edu.
Originally published by at sai.nd.edu on April 15, 2026.