Written By: Ameesha Hazarika

One of the BIT Program’s newest postdocs, Dr. Corbin Jensen, has had a long path to his current position. Originally born and raised in Romania, it wasn’t until he was in elementary school that Dr. Jensen was adopted and moved to the United States. In a new environment where his peers were learning the basic foundations of many subjects, Dr. Jensen found it especially difficult to keep up due to the language barrier. He recalled how “I was learning English and learning school at the same time. The idea of trying to figure out how to learn in an environment where I wasn’t necessarily set up to succeed, but I was always fascinated about learning how we learn how to learn.”

During his undergraduate studies at Michigan State University, Dr. Jensen encountered another learning challenge. While playing soccer, he sustained a traumatic brain injury that left him hospitalized for around 6 months. He had to relearn how to walk and talk again, and “at one point, it was like a 12 second memory span. I was in outpatient rehab for a year after the accident and then had to basically learn how to do everything all over again.” This experience further intrigued him about how we come to learn.

“This was another time where I was just sitting and thinking, ‘How do we learn, how do we educate ourselves when all the systems we have in place are no longer working for us?”’
– Dr. Corbin Jensen

His curiosity and desire to connect with people in similar situations led Dr. Jensen down the path of education and eventually becoming an educator himself. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at Michigan State University, his PhD in cancer biology at University of Arizona, and lastly, completed his postdoc at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After completing his postdoctoral training, Dr. Jensen found himself as a postdoctoral teaching scholar at our very own Biotechnology (BIT) Program at NC State. 

As a postdoctoral teaching scholar at the BIT Program, Dr. Jensen created his own course — BIT 495/595 Special Topics: AI Applications in Biotechnology and Research, which will be taught for the first time in Fall 2026. He decided to make his course on the use of AI because “whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, it is here, it has been here, and it is not going away” and “as individuals and also as educators, we can either turn a blind eye and pretend it doesn’t exist and isn’t part of education or embrace it and use it as a tool.” This idea also ties back to learning since many AI tools are learning models, and engaging with them is yet another way we are able to learn. However, when it comes to learning about and using AI, it is important to understand that AI should be used as a tool that can help us with things like sorting and running data rather than as the main source of information and producing final results. Being responsible with AI helps us cut down on time required to process collected data, which then allows us to focus and spend more time on the actual experiments being conducted. 

In AI Applications in Biotechnology and Research, students will utilize a basic science model organism — fruit flies. Students will establish their own mutant line of fruit flies and characterize them, using parameters such as embryonic mortality and morphological defects, using AI tools. Through Google Teachable Models, students will train a visual learning model and set up a classification system using images of and literature about mutant fruit flies from the web. Then, they will feed pictures of their own mutant line to the model in order to evaluate the lethality of their mutant fruit flies. After establishing the model, students will continue training the AI and progress onto more advanced systems to determine what characteristics deem a mutant line more severe than the other. As the systems become more advanced, students will move onto BiaPy, a Python-based AI tool, to better analyze their results and findings. Throughout this eight week course, there will be guided discussion prompts where the students can discuss whether they set-up their mutants correctly, whether they were lethal, and if so, why are they lethal?

To be successful in this class, one can be skeptical but should be open minded when it comes to using AI. No prior experience using AI or Python is needed in order to run these models. All that is expected of students is the willingness to put in the effort, engage with the materials, and participate during the discussions. Dr. Jensen himself has goals for evaluating the course in the upcoming semester, including collecting data on what students’ experience and feelings towards AI are, if they understand where they or the AI went wrong, and ultimately, do they understand that AI isn’t the ultimate right. It’s not so much whether the students train a good model, but rather if they “understand that AI is a tool. All tools are useful in certain situations but also have potential risks and limitations. Your hammer is very useful if you’re trying to put a nail inside a wall, but if you’re trying to unscrew a light bulb, a hammer is not going to be super useful. So, all tools have benefits but all tools also have limitations and shortfalls.” Understanding this is key to success in this course. 

As of now, all seats for BIT 495/595 Special Topics: AI Applications in Biotechnology and Research have been filled for Fall 2026, making it an already popular and in-demand course! Waitlists are open for any new students interested, as spots might become available closer to the start of the course in early October. For students planning on taking it after the Fall 2026 semester, make sure to keep an eye on your shopping cart and enrollment date because seats fill up fast!