How This Biomedical Engineering Major Is Thinking About AI Tools and Digital Learning

Isra Hussain first started thinking about the potential of AI to support every learner during a high school internship assisting children who had attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. She worked on a curriculum to make learning easier for students dealing with these challenges, and she saw that AI tools like ChatGPT could prove useful by, for example, helping students work through problems to find solutions.

Since then she entered Georgia Institute of Technology as a biomedical engineering major and she has continued thinking about the potential of AI in education. Like many current college students, she has had assignments that required her to use AI tools to complete tasks such as revising essays and completing physics problems.

“If it’s regulated and used in the correct manner,” she says, “AI can be implemented in college settings to help people who have limited access to education or need help with certain aspects of learning.”

So it was a lucky accident when a friend introduced Hussain to a recent Georgia Tech biomed graduate, Eeman Uddin, who had been an intern with Every Learner Everywhere in 2021. Uddin suggested that the spring 2025 Every Learner Everywhere student internship would be a perfect fit for Hussain’s passion: finding innovative ways to support people in overcoming challenges.

“The reason I’m in biomedical engineering is that I want to help people in a different way than I would in the typical pre-med route,” Hussain says. “When I saw Every Learner was discussing artificial intelligence and curriculum, I thought it was a way to follow my motto of helping people in new, innovative ways.”

Creating an AI toolkit

The Alpharetta, GA native and her fellow spring 2025 interns are developing an AI toolkit that will connect instructors and students to platforms that can help them teach and learn more efficiently and effectively. Hussain and the other interns are seeking an easily accessible digital home for information about AI tools to expand on the research of the Every Learner summer and fall 2024 interns.

Once the spring cohort establishes a hub for the material and finishes building the resource, the interns will seek insights from faculty members and students on their use of AI in coursework.

Advancing accessibility in education

Because the use of AI is growing so rapidly, Hussain says it’s imperative that every faculty member and student understand how best to use its tools. She envisions an AI toolkit that becomes a widely used resource for instruction for a variety of subjects and for students of all abilities. She also hopes it will be easily adaptable — a living document that instructors and students continue to shape even after it’s complete.

That starts with talking to instructors from various academic disciplines to get their suggestions. Hussain says the most important reason for seeking this input is to ensure that the toolkit meets the needs of those who use it.

While the toolkit the interns are developing will be for a general audience of instructors and students, Hussain hopes the group’s efforts also set the stage for research into increasing education accessibility. That interest is rooted in her work and volunteer efforts as well as her studies at Georgia Tech.

Her on-campus work with Alzheimer’s disease researchers cemented her focus on finding new ways to help people learn — and live — better. Hussain decided to minor in neuroscience, and after Georgia Tech, she plans to attend medical school and hopes to make research that will assist Alzheimer’s patients — or even cure the disease — her life’s work.

In this internship, she wants to plant the seed for the significant changes she’d like to be a part of in the future.

“How artificial intelligence is used in curriculums and with students is going to change the entire trajectory of how it’s used in medical technology and in our daily lives,” Hussain says.

“When you see a change that’s positive with AI, then you might see a change in careers that lead to really big outcomes. I just want to help with the start.”