AI at Foster

AI in Action: Building the Future of Business Education

Tayfun Keskin is developing comprehensive AI education resources for Foster, including teaching cases for a forthcoming AI textbook, AI-powered modules for graduate courses in project management and product leadership, and hands-on workshops for BITS students. Building on his research on human-AI collaboration and Foster’s first generative AI programming assignment—now adopted school-wide—his work aims to elevate hundreds of students’ AI capabilities each year and position Foster as a pioneer in practical AI business education.

Strategic Reasoning in the Age of Large Language Models

Mana Heshmati’s research examines how large language models (LLMs) reshape managerial cognition and strategic decision-making. Her findings provide evidence-based guidance on when LLMs enhance versus undermine human reasoning, and how collaboration structures can preserve independent human judgment. Her work reveals that LLMs tend to amplify users’ preexisting beliefs in strategic decisions—highlighting the importance of using the right theoretical framework—and that excessive delegation or lenient screening of AI output can diminish subsequent decision quality, even after brief exposure.

AI for Good: Designing Chatbots for Accessible Mental Health Support

Elina Hwang and Stephanie Lee explore how artificial intelligence can drive positive social impact. One project develops AI chatbots designed to make mental health support more personalized and accessible. Another investigates how AI-generated explanations can improve misinformation labeling and help reduce the spread of false information across digital platforms.

AI and Venture Capital: Understanding the New Investment Landscape

Lea Stern’s AI-focused research bridges academia and industry impact. Her current projects include using machine learning to analyze venture capital allocation and leading an Anthropic-supported study, “Who Funds the Frontier?”, which maps the investors backing breakthrough AI. She has helped shape global dialogue around AI in finance by co-organizing the AI & Big Data in Finance Forum for three consecutive years, and will soon help launch a new junior-scholar AI series. Beyond Foster, Lea shares her expertise through guest lectures and media interviews and contributes to the year-long Longitudinal Expert AI Panel (LEAP) survey. As an AI Ambassador, she aims to bring leading-edge AI perspectives to the Foster community.

AI-Enhanced Experimentation and Consumer Trust

Zikun Ye designs large language model (LLM) systems that transform unstructured text into decision-grade insights for market research, experimentation, and consumer trust. His work includes developing LLM-based algorithms that accelerate market research and A/B testing, and quantifying how AI influences consumer risk perception to inform business strategy.

Léonard Boussioux develops methods that democratize expert-level problem-solving by combining generative AI, operations research, and large-scale experimentation. His 2024 Organization Science paper, one of the journal’s most widely read worldwide, demonstrated how strategic human-AI collaboration can reduce costs by 99 percent while improving solution quality. Building on this research, his AI-driven review system now helps MIT Solve streamline the evaluation of thousands of social-impact startups, allowing experts to focus on creativity and impact while dramatically shortening the screening cycle. At Foster, he leads GenAI bootcamps and graduate courses that train hundreds of students and industry professionals to accelerate innovation and decision-making with generative AI.

Uttara Ananthakrishnan studies how AI and digital platforms shape economic behavior, information flows, and user decision-making at scale. Her projects analyze large datasets from online marketplaces and review systems to understand how platform design influences participation, content creation, and the spread of information. Her work offers evidence-based insights for improving platform performance and strengthening the quality of digital interactions. At Foster, she brings these findings into the classroom and broader AI initiatives, helping students evaluate how algorithmic systems influence business strategy and consumer behavior.