Prof. Nitin Agarwal is the Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and Donaghey Distinguished Professor of Information Science at UA Little Rock. Prof. Agarwal founded COSMOS in 2015. In 2020, COSMOS was recognized as a statewide research center by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
Prof. Nitin Agarwal’s research aims to push the boundaries of our understanding of digital and cyber social behaviors that constantly emerge and evolve in modern information and communication platforms. At COSMOS, he leads projects with a combined funding of over $30 million from various U.S. federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, DARPA, the Department of State, and the National Science Foundation. He plays a significant role in the long-term partnership between UA Little Rock and the Department of Homeland Security. He developed publicly available social media analysis tools (Blogtracker, VideoTracker, and COVID-19 Scam Tracker), assisting NATO Strategic Communications and Public Affairs, European Defense agencies, the Australian Defense Science and Technology agency’s strategic policy group, the Singapore government, the Arkansas Attorney General’s office, among others. Prof. Agarwal serves on the Arkansas AI Task Force, appointed by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Prof. Agarwal participates in the National Tech Innovation Hub, launched by the U.S. Department of State, to counter foreign-based propaganda.
Prof. Agarwal’s research contributions lie at the intersection of social computing, behavior-cultural modeling, collective action, cognitive threat analysis, social cyber forensics, Artificial Intelligence, data mining, machine learning, smart health, and privacy. From Saudi Arabian women’s right-to-drive campaigns to Autism awareness campaigns to ISIS’ propaganda/recruitment campaigns to anti-West/anti-NATO influence campaigns to COVID-19 scams to digital manipulation campaigns during elections around the world, at COSMOS, he is directing several projects that have made foundational and translational contributions to social and computational sciences, particularly in understanding coordinated and multimedia-rich information campaigns to counter cognitive threats. He has published 12 books and over 400 articles in top-tier, peer-reviewed forums, garnering nearly 6,000 citations. These publications include NATO’s Defense StratCom Journal, Army University Press, CANSOFCOM’s Future Conflict journal, and Baltic Security, among others. He has received several best paper awards and nominations. His most recent book, published by Springer in its series on cybersecurity, explores deviant social behaviors on the Internet. Local, national, and international media outlets, including Bloomberg, U.S. News, KUAR, Arkansas Business, Arkansas Times, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and many others, have covered his work. Over the last several years, Prof. Agarwal has spoken at various public and professional, national and international forums such as NATO’s StratCom COE (Riga, Latvia), DARPA, US Department of State, US Naval Space and Warfare (SPAWAR), US Pentagon’s Strategic Multilevel Assessment groups, US National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Sweden’s Defense Agency (FOI), Facebook Asia Pacific HQ, Twitter Asia Pacific HQ, US Embassy in Singapore, Singapore Ministry of Communication and Information, Singapore Ministry of Defense, NATO Senior Leadership meetings, USIP, among others. He serves as a technical advisor to Little Rock-based firms, including those participating in the FinTech Accelerator.
Prof. Agarwal obtained his Ph.D. from Arizona State University with outstanding dissertation recognition. He was recognized as one of ‘The New Influentials: 20 In Their 20s’ by Arkansas Business. He was recognized with the University-wide Faculty Excellence Award in Research and Creative Endeavors by UALR in 2015 and 2021. Prof. Agarwal received the Social Media Educator of the Year Award at the 21st International Education and Technology Conference. The Arkansas Times featured Prof. Agarwal in their special issue on “Visionary Arkansans”. Prof. Agarwal is an International Academy, Research and Industry Association (IARIA) Fellow, an Arkansas Academy of Computing (AAoC) Fellow, an Arkansas Research Alliance (ARA) Fellow in 2018, and a senior member of IEEE. His research was recognized as one of the top 10 solutions for “Countering Cognitive Warfare: The Invisible Threat” by NATO’s Innovation Hub out of 132 teams from the 30 NATO member nations. His COVID-19 Scam Tracker was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the key technological innovations globally to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Visit https://agarwalnitin.com for more details or contact him at nxagarwal@ualr.edu.