On Wednesday, December 10, the Center for Innovation Computing and Networked Systems (iCNS) and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) hosted DuckAI 2025 Fall, the 2nd annual symposium of its AI research series. The fall symposium showcased how Stevens is working to make “computing without boundaries” real on campus, turning iCNS from a new research center into a community where students, faculty, and industry partners build AI-driven systems together.
iCNS and computing without boundaries
The symposium is anchored in the launch of the iCNS, which Dr. Min Song, ECE professor and Director of the iCNS, helped create around the idea that computing now permeates every discipline and every system we touch. iCNS brings together research in areas such as mobile and quantum computing, power and energy systems, robotics and smart systems, cyber-physical systems and IoT, 5G/6G networks, and embedded and trustworthy AI, giving students a place to work at the intersections rather than within narrow silos.
DuckAI 2025 Fall featured a lineup designed to connect Stevens students directly with leaders working on real-world AI systems. Invited speakers included Dr. Tianhao Wu, founder and CEO of opAIda Inc., Dr. Yingchao “YZ” Zhang, a technology executive and co-leader at opAIda, Dr. Mingyu Derek Ma, a senior machine learning scientist at Prescient Design (Genentech/Roche), and Dr. Yulong Cao, a research scientist at NVIDIA working on safe, human-centered autonomous driving. The symposium itself was organized and supported by a team including Hao Wang, Joseph Helsing, Min Song, Jessica Gruich, and Kevin Lu, with student research volunteers Rui Wei, Qingyang Yu, Hao (Lucas) Wang, and Xuan Li helping bring the day together.
Song’s “computing without boundaries” philosophy is visible in how DuckAI mixes hardware, software, communications, and data-driven projects in one space instead of separating them into different events. By tying DuckAI to iCNS, Stevens signals that this is not a one-off showcase but part of a longer-term effort to build an interdisciplinary ecosystem around computing and networked systems.
DuckAI as applied AI in action
This year’s DuckAI 2025 Fall, the second iCNS/ECE Symposium on AI Research and Innovations at Stevens, builds on the first DuckAI held in Spring 2025 and expands both its scope and ambition. The event featured invited talks, tutorials, and a poster and demo session where student teams present AI projects that span communications, sensing, robotics, security, and more. The throughline is applied AI: students are expected not just to understand machine learning concepts, but to apply them to real-world problems, explain their work to non-experts, and get feedback from people in academia and industry.
Dr. Hao Wang, who helped launch DuckAI while teaching Applied Machine Learning, describes the symposium as a response to students who want more than lectures and problem sets. Drawing on his experience running “Tiger AI” at Louisiana State University, he envisioned DuckAI as a recurring event with tutorials, posters, and demos where students can experiment, self-teach beyond the syllabus, and demonstrate what they can build with AI.
Wang emphasizes that Stevens students “are really not satisfied with what we taught in the classroom” and actively seek chances to test themselves on real problems using AI and machine learning. That is why he pushed to make DuckAI a per-semester event, with backing from Department Chair Min Song and ECE faculty and staff, and why he wants to grow it into a regional gathering that includes students and speakers from places like Yeshiva, New York University, and Rutgers.
Graduate students see DuckAI as both a learning experience and a launch pad. Over the course of the fall symposium, several visitors stopped by their poster, called their project interesting and different, and offered concrete ideas for how to scale it and align it more closely with industry needs. Encouraged by the positive feedback, they are now considering turning the project into a research paper with their advisor, Professor Hong, and exploring how far they can take it beyond the symposium — exactly the kind of student growth iCNS and DuckAI are designed to foster.
Students’ path into iCNS
Song notes that students have multiple pathways into this world of computing and networked systems research: formal research courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, working with faculty during semesters and summers, and, in stronger budget years, research scholarships offered through iCNS. Even with scholarships temporarily paused, he encourages students to seek out research not only for credit but to build capabilities and contribute to the center’s work. He also offers a roadmap for those hoping to enter fields related to AI and networked systems: first, build a solid foundation in a home discipline; second, learn how human, physical, and computational systems connect; and third, embrace AI as a powerful tool while remembering it must serve people rather than replace judgment. DuckAI 2025 Fall, with its mix of iCNS’s interdisciplinary vision, Wang’s applied AI ethos, and student-driven projects show what that roadmap can look like when it comes to life on campus.
