George Mason launches Virginia’s first public master’s degree in AI

George Mason University will offer a master of science in artificial intelligence (AI) starting this fall, becoming Virginia’s first public university to offer a stand-alone master’s degree in this field.  

Recently approved by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), the degree will equip the next generation of AI innovators with a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum blending foundational theory with real-world applications, ensuring graduates are prepared to address complex challenges in industry and government. 

Amarda Shehu, inaugural vice president and chief AI officer, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and Computing, and professor in the Department of Computer Science, said, “Seeing this vision come to life has been incredibly rewarding, and I am deeply honored to have led this effort to create a program that will shape the future of AI talent in Virginia and beyond.” 

Courses will span core domains such as machine learning foundations and practice; planning and decision-making for intelligent agents; and deep learning fundamentals; providing students with the expertise to build, deploy, and evaluate AI systems across various computing platforms.

 “We had to completely rethink how we teach AI to students,” added Shehu. “Rather than hiding such courses behind long chains of prerequisites, the challenge that we answered is how to design these courses to be largely self-containing and yet offer a rigorous foundation in AI."

Vadim Sokolov, associate professor, Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research, was one of the leading faculty in the working group designing curriculum. With his mathematics background and his extensive experience teaching the first deep learning course on campus in 2017, Sokolov has great interest in the field and what this means for students. "The idea is students are not just ‘prompt engineers’ but are supposed to understand the basics of the models and be able to tune them and train them for specific tasks.” 

Sokolov added that the program is unique in how it enhances this foundation with real-world settings. According to the program, students will be adept in managing the full machine learning operations lifecycle, integrating open-source AI frameworks, and developing secure, scalable AI solutions while effectively collaborating with cross-functional teams and communicating complex AI concepts to diverse stakeholders.  

“This program is carefully designed to meet the needs of our community, whether that is government or business, but it also provides a holistic experience to students, from AI ethics to AI policy, and from scalable and secure AI to advanced AI solutions, Sokolov said.  

Shehu said, “As AI transforms the way we work, govern, and live, this master’s degree program is more than just a response to demand—it is a commitment to preparing students with both the technical expertise and ethical grounding to shape the future of AI responsibly.”