Two Fellows Join Future Press AI Journalism Project Team
The Future Press AI Journalism Project has been working since February 2023 to understand the role of AI chatbots in journalism and newsrooms. The team, previously comprised of Professor Robert Quigley, Michael Zhang and Angelica Ruzanova, now welcomes two new members to their research: Jonathan Hopper and Melanie Faz.
Professor Quigley expressed his excitement regarding the expansion to their team, "We have learned so much about the power and limitations of artificial intelligence as it relates to journalism. There’s still much to test out, from newsroom workflow to content creation, and I believe expanding our team to four students will give us the resources we need."
Meet the 2 newest AI fellows and read about their roles in the project thus far.
Melanie Faz
- Journalism Senior with Business Minor
- Hometown: Dallas, TX
Hi! I am an AI Researcher with the Media Innovation Group. AI is a growing field that is going to impact every field and I want to learn how I can use it to make journalism better. One way to do this is to improve AI content detection tools so the team is working on how to better identify AI-generated content. I am so grateful for this opportunity and excited to share our findings with fellow journalists. In my free time, I write for The Daily Texan, journal on my Substack, explore new food places, go on runs and watch tv shows.
Michael Zhang
- Sociology Junior
- Hometown: Katy, TX
Hello! My name is Michael Zhang, a junior sociology major from Katy Texas. Usually when I’m not working on MIG Projects, I like to use my free time and rock climb outside in the Austin area.
So far for the AI Project, I’ve mainly been directly programming AI bots to help newsrooms speed up their more tedious journalistic tasks, whether it be transcribing and summarizing large amounts of documents, or as an online chatbot. I’m excited to see what MIG can come up with!
Jonathan Hopper
- English and Journalism Junior
- Hometown: Dallas, TX
I am an AI Researcher with the Media Innovation Group. I am excited to research the ways AI will impact journalism, from ethical concerns to building tools that will help news rooms. We are currently working with a tool to help analyze the Daily Texan archives. This is an exciting opportunity and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish. Outside of school and research I enjoy spending time in the outdoors, including scuba diving and riding my motorcycle. I'm also enjoy reading, writing, and all literature.
Angelica Ruzanova
- Journalism Junior and Philosophy of Law minor
- Hometown: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Hello. My name is Angelica and I'm a third-year Journalism student pursuing a minor in the Philosophy of Law. My hometown is landlocked in a country that many people confuse with other neighboring -stans, and that is Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I also used to live in the United Arab Emirates and Russia. I joined the AI team this semester after becoming greatly intrigued by its capabilities in my industry. It feels like AI is integrated into every platform I turn to, and I wanted to join the group on campus that researches and experiments its place within newsrooms. So far, my projects have been nothing short of exciting. The team and I prompted numerous chatbots to write us auto-generated articles, skim the Internet for missing context, and even attempt to write a journalistic newsletter. Next, we want to see whether AI can help with fact-checking, detecting bias in media, and summarizing large files into digestible information. There really is no limit to what we find and do!