The Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs (BETHA) Endowment annual grant competition supports projects that examine the complex relationship between science and technology on society and cultural issues. Four projects were selected for the 2025 award cycle.
Projects selected to receive 2025 grants
Towards an AI Avatar for Public Engagement
Michael White | College of Arts and Sciences
As AI becomes more pervasive, advancing public understanding of AI and its societal implications is of escalating importance. This project will contribute to the collaborative development between Ohio State researchers and COSI of a longer-term vision for a unique interactive conversational experience that helps the general public understand what AI does and how it does it.
Leveraging Informal Networks and Supports for Families Involved with the Ghanaian Child Welfare System
Elinam Dellor | College of Social Work
The College of Social Work has partnered with the Ghanaian Department of Social Welfare to co-develop a mobile phone app to streamline social service delivery for vulnerable families. The app will assist social workers: identify and link families to community services; facilitate information sharing across agencies; and act as the organizing body for coordination and communication around each case. The project aims to build collaborative relationships between social workers and service providers in formal and informal sectors with the goal of ensuring children remain safely in their homes.
Leveraging AI and Learning Analytics to Promote Middle School Students’ Engagement and Communicative Competence in Online Discussions
Tzu-Jung Lin | College of Education and Human Ecology
This design-based project addresses the under-optimized use of online discussion platforms in middle school, where students struggle to engage with processing growing information due to a lack of timely cognitive and social-emotional support. The team will develop e-CSR (Collaborative Social Reasoning), an innovative online discussion platform featuring teacher- and student-facing dashboards informed by learning analytics, AI technology and ongoing work. This project will iteratively design, develop and evaluate e-CSR's feasibility and impact on middle school students' engagement and communicative competencies in online discussions, with a long-term goal to widely disseminate this platform and valuable insights for educational technology innovation.
Engineering and Humanities Alliance for the Exploration of Human Futures
Michael Groeber | College of Engineering
Phillip Tuxbury-Gleissner | College of Arts and Sciences
Developed by an interdisciplinary team from the colleges of Engineering and Arts and Sciences, this project brings together students from STEM and humanities disciplines to study the impact of the changing environments and processes in manufacturing, including artificial intelligence, on human culture. At the project’s core stands the development of an experiential undergraduate certificate in interdisciplinary Engineering and Humanities Studies, consisting of classes that offer a pathway through the General Education curriculum. Here, students will explore the connection between technology and society, and expand their writing, critical thinking, and intercultural communication skills to succeed in a globally interconnected labor force.