The nation’s first small liberal arts college to create an institute devoted to artificial intelligence now has a director.

Amanda Stent will lead the newly formed Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Colby College.

Stent has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers and is a regular speaker on the subject of natural language, which gives computers the ability to understand human text and spoken words.

The institute was created through a $30 million gift from the Davis family and charitable foundation trustee Andrew Davis.