University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is Minnesota's flagship public research university and the only land-grant institution in the state. Founded in 1851, it enrolls over 56,000 students and employs approximately 25,000 faculty and staff. The university operates on a mission of world-class education, groundbreaking research, and community-engaged outreach, with an annual operating budget of approximately $4.2 billion and over $1.13 billion in annual external research funding. Within the College of Science and Engineering, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering houses research groups working on artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning. Assistant Professor Dongyeop Kang leads the Minnesota NLP group, which focuses on human-centric language technologies including evaluating and enhancing LLM reasoning, building thinking assistant tools for expert domains, and societal alignment of AI systems. In June 2024, Kang received an Open Philanthropy Agent Benchmark Grant of $74,132 to develop benchmarks for assessing large language models' capabilities in automating legal tasks, in collaboration with law professors Daniel Schwarcz and Brett McDonnell. This work falls within Open Philanthropy's focus area of potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence. More broadly, the university launched a new AI Hub in March 2026, led by inaugural Vice Provost for AI Dr. Galin Jones. The hub aims to advance AI innovation, provide education and workforce development, and establish ethical governance frameworks for responsible AI use. Key research areas under the hub include agriculture, medicine, materials science, and responsible AI practices.