Adrian Socorro

On February 25, Medici Archive Project director Alessio Assonitis visited UF to discuss how AI-enabled research is reshaping the way scholars and students work with historical collections. The public lecture was co-organized by the Hamilton AI Lab at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education and the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Both students and faculty got the chance to learn about the Medici Archive's development and ask questions about Alessio's experience in archival work and digital projects.

The talk, titled Nostalgia for the Future: The History of the Medici Archive in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, offered insight into the Medici Archive Project's ongoing initiative to preserve and make accessible the vast archival records of the Medici period. Assonitis explained that traditional digitization often requires researchers to manually enter each document's information into a database field by field — a process that, at the volume of the Medici records, could take centuries to complete. He emphasized that the goal of AI-assisted digitization is not to replace in-person archival research, but to lower the barriers of discovery and help more people find reasons to engage with archives, whether online or eventually in the reading room.

Although this is the first time Alessio has paid a visit to the University of Florida, the relationship between UF and the Medici Archive Project has a long-standing history. Daniel Maxwell, AI Consultant with UF Research Computing and Operations Manager of the Hamilton AI Lab, has been working with Assonitis since they met at the 2024 Renaissance Society of America conference in Chicago, where Assonitis spoke on a panel about digital humanities in archival work.

Funded by a research grant awarded to Daniel Maxwell by Microsoft's AI Economy Institute, Maxwell traveled to Florence in October 2025, accompanied by Curtis Maughan, director of the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education AI Lab. There, the two explored the mutual benefits and collaborative possibilities between the Hamilton AI Lab and the Medici Archive Project — an encounter that sparked the idea to bring Assonitis to UF for a campus-wide talk, among other scholarly endeavors.

Maxwell helped plan the event with Ana Siljak, Associate Professor of Humanities in the Hamilton School; Curtis Maughan, from the George A. Smathers Libraries; Gabriele Belletti, Assistant Professor of Italian and French in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; and Alioune Sow, Chair and Associate Professor of French and African Studies in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. The event was further supported by co-sponsorship from UFIT, the UF AI² Center, UF Academic Research Consulting & Services, the Medici Archive Project, and the Artificial Intelligence & Informatics Research Institute.

FSU Students Return from FURLS with Plans to Build New Undergraduate Research Organization

Florida State University is undergoing an exciting change as students work to establish a new student-led research organization. This effort began following a gap identified in the campus resources available for undergraduate researchers.

When FSU students Sophie Works, Joziah Burnett, and Priyanka Perumalraja attended the Florida Undergraduate Research Leadership Summit (FURLS), they got the chance to hear presentations from student leaders across 10 universities. Inspired by the University of Florida's Center for Undergraduate Research Board of Students (CURBS), FSU students began exploring whether a similar organization could be established.

Previously, FSU has had the Student Department of Academic Affairs, but its scope is limited to maintaining an undergraduate research journal and distributing conference travel grants. This new organization would take things a step further, focusing on building a stronger undergraduate research culture on campus through peer mentorship, workshops, community events, and campus visibility.

Returning from FURLS with this idea in mind, the students brought the concept to faculty as part of FSU's Center for Undergraduate Research. The faculty received the pitch positively and offered support early on. The students sent out an interest survey and quickly recruited over 12 students to their new organization, taking the name URN (Undergraduate Research Network).

The students drafted a proposed committee structure for the organization, including a Mentorship Committee for identifying and training student leaders, an Inclusion and Access Committee for broadening research pathways across departments, and a Social and Community Building Committee for organizing networking and informational events such as workshops.

To help develop the organization, the students have been working closely with the External Affairs Committee of CURBS. They intend to add about 20 new ambassadors to their team and to host workshops and research-related events at the start of the Fall 2026 semester.