The CUNY AI Lab (CAIL) seeks applications for CAIL Fellows for the 2026-2027 academic year. CAIL Fellows will work with the faculty and staff who have established the CUNY AI Lab to build its capacity and extend its reach throughout the Graduate Center and in collaboration with partners on other campuses. This is a terrific opportunity for graduate students with research, teaching, and technical interests related to artificial intelligence and critical AI literacy to connect with a community of scholars who are building out homegrown infrastructure for working with Large Language Models in ways that assert the value of human autonomy and align with the historical commitments of the City University of New York.

About the CAIL Fellowship

Selected fellows will work up to seven hours per week in the Fall 2026 and Spring 2027 semesters on projects they develop individually and collaboratively, and also offer support to other members of the community who are using CAIL tools. Fellows will report to CAIL directors and will be expected to work both independently and in collaboration with other Fellows. Strong candidates will have experience experimenting with AI in research, teaching, and/or digital scholarship, as well as an interest in thinking critically about its uses and limitations. Applicants do not need to have advanced technical or programming experience. Fellows will be expected to be available to attend meetings in person at the Graduate Center throughout the academic year.

Fellows will contribute to the Lab’s work in the following areas:

  • Testing Lab-built applications and providing feedback;
  • Providing technical and pedagogical support to participating faculty at the Graduate Center and partner CUNY campuses;
  • Assisting with communications and outreach to help promote the Lab and its programming;
  • Drafting teaching materials and documentation;
  • Writing reflections on their experimentation with AI for the CAIL blog;
  • Developing and running workshops on CAIL tools.

Compensation and Eligibility

This is a top-up fellowship of $10,000 that can be held alongside other Graduate Center support. Graduate Center masters students and Ph.D. students from all disciplines are eligible to apply.

To Apply

Please email the following to ailab@gc.cuny.edu as a single PDF named YourLastName.CAILFellowship.pdf. Please include “CAIL Fellowship Application” in the subject line.

  • 1-page statement of interest, describing your experience with or interest in AI in research and/or teaching, what you hope to explore through the fellowship, and what you would bring to CAIL
  • 2-page CV
  • the names and contact information (including email addresses) of two references

Please avoid using GenAI in the composition of your application materials.

Applications are due by September 22, 2026.

All questions should also be directed to ailab@gc.cuny.edu.

About the CUNY AI Lab

CAIL is an initiative co-led by the Graduate Center Digital Initiatives, the Teaching and Learning Center, the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, and the Mina Rees Library that builds and maintains AI infrastructure for teaching, research, and academic work across CUNY. Its work involves hosting and maintaining the CAIL Sandbox, a zero-retention chat environment where faculty, staff, and students can engage with curated open-weight models, configure tools for research and classroom use, and consult a public Model Registry that lists current Model API offerings, capabilities, context limits, and token prices. CAIL’s aim is to make these systems legible enough for users to evaluate, adapt, and question the tools they use.