2024 recipient of the HBCU Lifetime Achievement Faculty Network Award will explore the transformative power of AI
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 14, 2025 – Robbie K. Melton — higher education trailblazer, national researcher, speaker, author, and international consultant — will deliver the luncheon keynote at the 2025 Annual Meeting for the MS-CC. The event will take place May 28-30 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Melton’s keynote, “AI for All: Transforming Minds, Campuses, and Communities,” will inspire educators, administrators, researchers, and community leaders to discover how AI can be a powerful catalyst for change across MSIs. Her talk will offer practical strategies, insights, and tools to help harness AI in ways that align with institutional mission, values, and vision for the future.
The keynote is scheduled for 12:15 p.m. CT on May 29 at the Loews Nashville at Vanderbilt Plaza.
Distinguished Leader
Melton serves as provost and vice president for academic affairs, vice president of technology innovations for the SMART Global Technology Innovation Center, principal investigator of “AI for All” Applied Research Center, and is a tenured professor at Tennessee State University. She is an advocate of Open Education Resources (OER) for global access to education content.
She formerly served twenty-five years as the associate vice chancellor for emerging technologies for the Tennessee Board of Regents. She was the primary developer and chief administrator for the system-wide Regents Online Degree Programs.
Melton has garnered frequent recognition for her leadership. Most recently, she was acknowledged in March 2025 as one of the leading women shaping AI. She was selected as one of the 2024 Top 50 Women Leaders in Education and the 2024 recipient of the HBCU Lifetime Achievement Faculty Network Award for her work in emerging technology. In 2023, she was recognized as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders in Education by Women We Admire. In 2019, she was named to the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) Hall of Fame.
Additional awards include the 2018 Distinguished Women of Legend, 2017 OLC Leadership, 2016 WCET Life Time Achievement, 2014 Top 30 Technologists, 2013 Apple Distinguished Educator, 2012 Top Fifty Technology Innovator, and 2012 WOW EdTechnology Awards.
Community. Collaboration. Connection.
The MS-CC Annual Meetings are gatherings of peers, practitioners, community-builders, advocates, and leaders from HBCUs, TCUs, HSIs, and the broader community of MSIs. These events create a space where HBCUs and TCUs lead the conversation around sustainable campus-level IT capabilities for data-intensive education and research programs.
The MS-CC Annual Meetings are made possible thanks to support and funding from the National Science Foundation under awards #2137123 and #2234326.
Registration is now open. To learn more and secure your spot, visit the event website.
About the MS-CC | www.ms-cc.org
The MS-CC aims to strengthen cyberinfrastructure for research and education across a wide range of fields and communities, taking into account the education, research, and service missions of participating institutions. In partnership with Internet2, the MS-CC received funding from the National Science Foundation to support this vision: OAC Award # 2137123 and OAC Award # 2234326.
Media Contact:
Sara Aly
Internet2 Communications
saly@internet2.edu