The paper, "Automating Curriculum Intelligence: Scalable Extraction and Categorization of University Courses Using GenAI" was co-authored by Professors Tan Gürpinar, Luis SaCouto, Shizhen (Jasper) Jia and students Sana Quadri ’26 and Amelia McKenna.  

Their paper demonstrates a time-saving and accurate generative AI tool that analyzes university curricula to reveal emerging in-demand skills, highlighting how different learning experiences connect to real-world opportunities and future career paths, Gürpinar said.  

SaCouto said the idea was born while they were conducting research across numerous university curricula for another joint paper proposed by Gürpinar for the ISCAP conference, titled “Virtual, Augmented, and Extended Reality in Higher Education: Trends, Applications, Impacts.” The joint paper was co-authored by Gürpinar, SaCouto, Jia, Quadri and Guido Lang, department chair and professor of Business Analytics & Information Systems at Quinnipiac. 

“Tan was very interested in finding out what big universities are doing on extended reality and virtual reality. As we started the process, it was very manual. We had to search through catalogues and course descriptions. Being an AI guy, I talked to Tan and said, ‘I think there’s a way we can automate this,’” SaCouto said. 

Undertaking research for the second joint paper also created an interesting juxtaposition with the work being conducted for the first paper.  

“Basically, we found ourselves in this very interesting situation where on the one hand we were doing the study manually, but on the other hand, we’re trying to create a system that automates this type of study,” said SaCouto.  

As proof of concept, they were able to compare the output from the automated system with output they had produced manually.  

“We found out that the system we developed was actually much better, and much more comprehensive than we were,” SaCouto said.  

SaCouto and Quadri presented the generative AI concept during the 2025 ISCAP national conference held in Louisville, Kentucky November 5 to 8. 

“People found it interesting. It seemed like there was a need for something like this. That’s why I think it received the award, and also as motivation for us to keep going! People want development of this system,” said SaCouto.  

Before joining Quinnipiac this year, SaCouto was an invited Assistant Lecturer of Machine Learning and AI the University of Lisbon, where his Ph.D. research on associative memory and vision earned the highest distinction. With experience at McKinsey and as Principal ML Scientist at DareData, his interests span both the foundational assumptions of learning systems and their applications in business and finance. 

Jia joined Quinnipiac this year as an assistant professor in business analytics and information systems, bringing his strong expertise in research and industry connections. His research focuses on human and AI interactions, more specifically how those interactions shape an individual's decision-making, as well as ethical implications of innovation having to do with cyber security, information privacy, inclusivity and governance.  

As an assistant professor of business analytics and information systems at Quinnipiac, Gürpinar researches and teaches the impact of blockchain and other emerging technologies on organizations, the environment, and society. Prior to joining Quinnipiac, Gürpinar led the 360° Initiative at Blockchain Europe, focusing on decentralized governance approaches. At Quinnipiac, Gürpinar is also faculty fellow in residence at The Grove, an interdisciplinary living-learning community of students. 

Gürpinar said bringing this research team together was especially gratifying due to the experience and energy SaCouto and Jia brought to the project as new faculty members, and the contributions of Quadri, a Grove student mentor, and McKenna, Quadri’s Grove student mentee.  

“What I enjoyed most is the energy that came from bringing together new faculty and our Grove students to just trouble shoot together,” Gürpinar said. “Each person brought a different perspective - faculty with fresh research insights, students with firsthand experience navigating emerging technologies. I love that Quinnipiac recognizes students already bring at least affinity but sometimes even strong generative AI skills to the table, and rather than labeling that as cheating, we treat it as a strength, inviting them to tap into a wide range of AI tools beyond ChatGPT to elevate their creativity. That mix created a space where curiosity drove the work and everyone could contribute meaningfully.” 

While working together on the project over the summer, Jia said the intelligent and collaborative work between faculty and students, combined with support such as feedback from Dr. Lang, was a tribute to the Quinnipiac community. 

“Tan approached Luis and I for a project he was thinking about doing together, and during that project, Luis came up with the idea of automation with generative AI. We thought it was a really interesting idea – so we said, ‘Hey, why not write another paper?’ We had very productive discussions and meetings, and the students are so bright – this project could not have been done without them. The whole atmosphere at Quinnipiac is amazing,” Jia said. 

Quadri said presenting the paper as an undergraduate student at the 2025 ISCAP national conference helped to spotlight the many opportunities Quinnipiac presents for students to become involved in cutting-edge research with expert faculty.  

“There’s a ton of students at Quinnipiac that do research. Being an undergraduate and going to this conference was a great way to show that we have undergraduates doing academic research that a lot of Ph.D. students are doing,” Quadri said.  

SaCouto said the collective expertise, curiosity, and ambitious spirit supporting research at Quinnipiac is what drew him join the faculty.  

“It’s one of the main reasons why I came from to the U.S. to work at Quinnipiac. I chose Quinnipiac because I feel it is very unique. There are not many places that I know of where the university is so open in terms of allowing you to publish multidisciplinary research, and so that makes colleagues very willing to cooperate. The university is actually encouraging it. That’s awesome for someone who is curious, like me, and who wants to learn about different things and collaborate with people with different expertise,” said SaCouto. 

Gürpinar feels much of the expertise he contributed to this meaningful research involved identifying and uniting top collaborators to share in his enthusiasm for emerging technology. 

“Most of it has been knowing and bringing together the best people to collaborate on this. The rest is getting way too excited about emerging tech. Put those together and you have a research team, two studies, and a best paper award,” said Gürpinar.