Scientist Centered Artificial Intelligence Lab
SCAIL
Spring 2026 SCAIL members.
The Scientist Centered AI Lab (SCAIL) is a research lab at University of Hawai'i at Hilo,
housed under our interdisciplinary Data Science Program.
Our mission is to develop novel AI systems that interact effectively with human scientists to help them solve challenging scientific problems facing Hawaii and the world. We work with a variety of scientists, including climate scientists, marine scientists, environmental scientists, and more. Rather than simply applying existing AI systems, we seek to create general-purpose AI innovations that can be particularly helpful to scientists.
Lab Members
Director and PITravis Mandel
Undergraduate Students:
Alex Bridges
Isaiah Broderson
Federico Brown
Bert Collins
Xavier Huang
Josh Kralewski
Paige Matheson
Abraham Meshesha
Richard Oliver II
Raine Kyro Visaya
Former members
Sebastian Carter, Samuel Chiu, Ian Scarth, Xatrik Bera
We are always looking for new members! Generally speaking, the requirements are being enrolled at UH Hilo (or a local high school) with strong programming and problem solving background, ideally in Python and data science contexts.
Location
Our lab is located in the beautiful Edwin H. Mookini Library in the heart of the UH Hilo campus in Hilo, Hawaii. Our physical lab space is specially designed to facilitate easy collaboration between undergraduate students and faculty, while creating an engaging and productive atmosphere. Access to the lab is by invitation only. If you'd like to arrange a visit to the lab, please contact tmandel [at] hawaii [dot] edu - we'd be happy to show you around!
Funding
We are primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), through current awards HCC-1942229, OIA-214913, and RI2-2413244. We are deeply grateful to the NSF for providing this support for our research.
We recently recieved a small amount of intramural funding to improve our lab facilities, for which we are grateful to the UH Hilo administration.