Anything but artificial:
X. Christine Wang is personalizing learning with AI

GSE Professor X. Christine Wang isn’t mincing words when discussing the state of early literacy in the U.S.

National reading proficiency rates have been in steady decline: According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 33% of U.S. fourth graders met reading proficiency standards in 2022—a figure that dropped even further to 31% in 2024.

Early literacy is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic success. Students who struggle to develop foundational reading skills in the early grades often face lasting challenges. By third or fourth grade, when the shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” occurs, those already behind can find it increasingly difficult to keep up.

While many recognize artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to draft essays or generate images, its potential to transform learning outcomes is only beginning to emerge. At UB and beyond, researchers are exploring AI’s role in shaping the future of education.

Wang is at the center of this movement. Her latest research grants—totaling over $30 million—have positioned her at the forefront of AI-driven education.

As principal investigator of the Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI (CELaRAI) and a key leader in the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education, Wang is helping to shape the future of AI in education. While she continues to focus on early education and learning sciences, her work now extends to developing responsible AI tools that enhance literacy learning and improve and expand speech and language services in schools.

In addition, she is leading initiatives in GSE’s PlayfulAI Learning and Design Lab to help young children develop AI literacy and prepare them for an AI-driven future.

Born and educated in China before earning her doctorate in the U.S., Wang had always been fascinated by how children learn. Her dissertation centered on how young students exercised agency in technology-supported learning environments. Initially, she had planned to study how teachers incorporated computers into their classrooms. But after spending considerable time observing children, she realized something much more compelling was happening.

Given just one computer and one mouse to share during a short free-play period, the first grade students didn’t simply take turns. They collaborated. Instead of switching games or playing solo, they convinced each other to stick with the same game so they could level up together. They shared shortcuts, pointed out hidden digital treasures and built team strategies on the fly. What appeared to be unstructured play quickly revealed itself as a rich, student-driven learning experience full of negotiation, cooperation and collective discovery.

For Wang, it was a powerful reminder that learning doesn’t always happen in ways we expect.

This insight reshaped her career. Instead of focusing solely on how teachers used technology, she turned her attention to how students engaged with it organically—and how technology could be designed to enhance those interactions.

At the center of Wang’s AI research is CELaRAI—a groundbreaking initiative housed at UB with the mission to transform the science of early reading through AI innovations. One of the major challenges in early reading instruction is the lack of individualized, high-quality reading materials. Finding decodable texts that align with each child’s phonics and vocabulary needs is time-consuming and difficult for teachers.

That’s where AI Reading Enhancer (AIRE) comes in. AIRE was designed to generate personalized reading materials tailored to individual students, analyze real-time reading progress to provide insights to teachers and offer just-in-time support for literacy skills like phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.

The center is organized into four key thrusts: early literacy, AI development, AI ethics and learning sciences. Wang serves as principal investigator, coordinating efforts across these areas to ensure AI-driven literacy tools are designed with both innovation and responsibility in mind.

The center’s leadership is also composed of nine co-PIs, including Christopher Hoadley, John Strong and Jaekyung Lee from GSE, as well as Jinjun Xiong, who also serves as director of UB’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. Additional co-PIs include Tanya Christ from East Carolina University, Laura Tortorelli from Michigan State University, Sanmi Koyejo from Stanford University, Abeer Alwan from UCLA and Dilek Hakkani Tur from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Christine's leadership was crucial in putting together this large interdisciplinary AI research team and partners. She knows how to do the right things at the right time,” said Lee, professor in GSE’s Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology.

The center’s work comes at a critical moment—not just because of the nation’s growing literacy crisis but also because AI is advancing rapidly, raising urgent questions about how it should be integrated into education.

Strong, GSE assistant professor of learning and instruction, sees firsthand how Wang’s leadership keeps the massive operation moving forward.

“She has a deep understanding of all of these different areas—AI, early literacy development, research methods—where she’s really the best person to lead such a large group of people,” said Strong. “I don’t envy her for having to oversee so many researchers, students and postdocs, but she’s steadfast. She doesn’t give up, even in the face of challenges.”

Over the next five years, CELaRAI will conduct national teacher surveys and classroom studies to inform AI design, develop the AIRE tool through human-centered user studies, and conduct a year-long efficacy study through collaborations with partner schools in urban, suburban and rural communities in New York, Michigan and North Carolina.

The center’s contributions promise to be wide-ranging and impactful. Wang and her team aim to advance automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies tailored for young children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In addition, they strive to deepen the science of early reading through insights into variability in foundational literacy skills and the types of support young learners need, as well as strengthen the field of team science by developing best practices for interdisciplinary collaboration.

For Strong, the real-world impact of this work inspires him.

“What always motivates me the most is the direct impact on the lives of teachers and students in the classroom,” he said. “Creating something that teachers will actually find useful and that will help students read—that’s what keeps us going.”

Wang also sees CELaRAI as an opportunity to advocate for responsible AI research at the national level. “When we consider responsible AI, we’re not just addressing isolated concerns—we’re engaging a complex constellation of ethical, social and technical issues,” Wang said. “If concerns like privacy, fairness or transparency are addressed only after a tool is developed, we’ve missed the opportunity to shape its design responsibly. Ethical considerations must be integrated from the outset, embedded throughout the entire lifecycle of AI development and deployment.”

As part of this ethical commitment, Wang emphasizes that the goal is to support—not supplant—the role of educators. “We want to make it very clear: We’re enhancing teachers’ work and supporting children’s learning. In no way are we trying to replace teachers,” she said.

To achieve this goal, the center will develop guidelines for responsible AI development and deployment in schools and provide national leadership through research dissemination and professional development initiatives.

Kristen Smigielski, a former kindergarten teacher and 2025 graduate of GSE's curriculum, instruction and the science of learning PhD program, understands the importance of ethical and understandable AI. Now serving as the project manager for CELaRAI, she initially approached AI with caution.

“I was very interested in AI as a teacher, but I was also concerned. How safe is it? How trustworthy is it?” said Smigielski. “Christine is not just exploring how AI could be used but also asking along the way: How do we make AI work for all learners in all schools? How do we make it publicly accessible?

“Instead of just looking at curriculum or looking at teachers or looking at students, Christine is crossing those boundaries. She is not just thinking of AI as a cool tool that we can use; she is reshaping how we approach learning and teaching,” she added.

Smigielski remains in awe of the breadth of Wang’s vision.

“I was fangirling when I first had the chance to work with her,” she admitted. “She’s really focused on shaping how AI is integrated into education in ethical ways and providing guidelines, support and community forums—all of these public-facing things—to get people to build their AI literacy, to understand how to keep students safe, and to ensure that equity and ethics are central to the conversation.”

Wang’s leadership in AI-driven education extends beyond literacy. She is also playing a critical role in the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education—an initiative that aims to close gaps in speech and language services for young children. With a nationwide shortage of speech-language pathologists (SLPs), many students—particularly those in under-resourced schools—struggle to access the early interventions they need.

The institute’s research spans multiple fields, from AI ethics and human-AI interaction to education and learning sciences. The institute is co-led by UB scholars, including Venu Govindaraju, Jinjun Xiong and Srirangaraj Setlur. It involves over 30 researchers across nine universities, including specialists in computer science, engineering, psychology and speech-language pathology.

As the project lead for education and workforce development, Wang is an essential part of the research team, playing a crucial role in ensuring that these AI solutions are grounded in evidence-based learning science. She is leading efforts to study real-world classroom interactions, validate AI-driven interventions and examine speech patterns, verbal articulation and nonverbal communication.

The goal is to ensure that AI is not only effective but also equitable and responsive to the diverse needs of students.

“Christine is an energetic and dynamic leader and always full of ideas for interdisciplinary collaboration. She is not afraid of venturing into new territories—such as AI in the beginning of our collaboration—and exploring innovative ways of applying technologies to improve children’s learning outcomes,” said Xiong, who is SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “For example, through our National AI Institute collaboration, she quickly became an AI expert herself and started to organize various events to spread the AI knowledge to the community and advocate the applications of AI to advance learning sciences.”

That commitment to outreach and collaboration was especially evident in 2024 when Wang organized a year-long AI + Education Learning Community Series to explore responsible AI in education with K–12 educators, AI experts and educational researchers.

UB has been a global leader in AI research and innovation for almost 50 years—long before AI became a mainstream topic. From pioneering the world’s first autonomous handwriting recognition system, which helped the U.S. Postal Service and Royal Mail save billions of dollars, to today’s university-wide efforts to develop new ways to use AI for social good, UB’s legacy of innovation continues to grow.

Now, the university’s national leadership in AI research has expanded with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s establishment of Empire AI—a statewide consortium launched in 2024 with UB serving as the home of Empire AI’s state-of-the-art artificial intelligence computing center.

Backed by $400 million in public and private investment, Empire AI is positioning New York State as a national leader in AI-driven innovation across sectors like education, health care and climate science. UB currently has more than 200 faculty researchers working at the cutting edge of the technology to solve society’s greatest challenges.

As UB strengthens its role in shaping AI’s future, Wang is ensuring that learning and equity remain part of the conversation. “She’s certainly a leader in this movement, and I think that her work on demystifying AI and bringing it to folks for whom it may be a little daunting is something that can't be overstated. It’s going to have an impact nationally,” said Carly Ogletree, the GSE grants specialist.

As Wang looks to the future, she remains focused on what matters most: using AI to support educators, empower learners and expand access to high-quality education.

From Rosenblith’s view, this work has the potential to transform how researchers across disciplines approach their fields.

“One of the most exciting aspects of Christine’s work is the way it expands the possibilities of AI in education. Many of her collaborators, both at UB and Michigan State, are literacy researchers—experts in interventions and early childhood learning. Now, by pairing their expertise with AI, they’re able to ask new questions and develop new solutions,” said Rosenblith. “And that’s what’s so exciting to me: Beyond the effectiveness of the tools themselves, this work demonstrates how AI can be a tool for discovery. It’s like a pen, a calculator—something that, when applied to different disciplines, can open entirely new avenues of research and impact.”

As AI continues to evolve, Wang’s leadership ensures that these technologies are developed and deployed in ways that benefit both students and teachers.

“AI’s biggest impact in education will be its ability to create truly personalized learning opportunities,” Wang said. “AI technology allows us to track student progress more effectively, make sense of learning patterns, and tailor both instructional materials and support in ways that meet individual needs. That kind of personalization has the power to transform education.”