July 17, 2025
GRCC graduate Dallas Hansen is diving headfirst into the world of AI, with his eyes toward working in the science field.
A recent GRCC graduate, Dallas returned to college for a second time to explore courses in Computer Information Systems and Artificial Intelligence (AI). It was a move driven by curiosity and a desire to build something new — and it paid off.
Jonnathan Resendiz, Assistant Professor at the Computer Information Systems Department and the Faculty Director of the AI Incubator, saw the potential in Dallas and recommended him for an internship at Kyros Digital. Dallas started his internship in June and felt confident stepping into the role.
“The work I’m doing now is very similar to what I was doing in class,” Hansen said. “What surprised me a little bit was how experimental this field still is. There are so many modeling tools, and we have to figure out which one to use with every job. I was expecting it to be a lot more concrete, but this is actually more like a playground where you get to try different things.”
Though it might seem like a leap, Dallas’s interest in AI has roots in his original academic path.
“The first time through GRCC, I was interested in chemical engineering,” Hansen said. “There are a lot of similarities between that and computer science. With both disciplines, you need to understand the core mechanics. Then you can experiment to find answers and solve problems. Computer science is different, however, because you can see the results of your tests right away.”
Now, Dallas is focused on where AI can go next — especially in the field that intersect with science and innovation.
“I think it’s fascinating to try and mimic the human mind,” Hansen said. “I’ve been working with large language models in my internship as I write code for conversational AI. For example, I’ve written code to make outbound calls for scheduling appointments, and for helping people obtain product information. The human mind is so complex, and for AI, language is a guessing game. It looks at a word and guesses the probability of what the next word could be. I like to say that it hallucinates, because sometimes it guesses wrong! The better job the person does of prompting the AI with concrete questions, the better job it can do of answering. I love the troubleshooting and debugging that goes into creating the right flow and producing correct answers.”
While the conversational language AI models are interesting, for Dallas, the real draw of AI comes from its potential in the sciences. That’s where he also hopes to leverage his chemical engineering skills.
“AI is a fantastic tool when you are working with a lot of data,” Hansen said. “It allows you to hyper-focus on very specific tasks. For example, people are creating models that decode proteins in order to figure out how to decompose plastics. That depth and level of work would be impossible to do without AI. I want to train and model AI to solve problems like this.”
Dallas intends to leverage what he learned at GRCC into a four-year degree from the University of Michigan.
“I found out about the Go Blue Guarantee, which provides free tuition to in-state students,” Hansen said. “I went back to GRCC using the Michigan Reconnect program to pay for my tuition. I got the basics here so I can transfer to the University of Michigan School of Information. I wasn’t accepted this year, but I’m planning to try again. Or, if this internship turns into a job, I may consider further schooling online. But either way, I’m excited about what I can do in the future with what I’ve learned.”
Learn more about the Computer Information Systems Pathway or the Artificial Intelligence Certificate.
This story reported by Julie Hordyk