Dr. Nitin Agarwal Invited to speak at WVAR-CRESH Summer School on AI and Smart Health
Dr. Nitin Agarwal delivered an invited talk on “Health Disinformation and Influence in Networks” for the Summer Workshop on AI and Smart Health held at West Virginia University, July 17–19, 2024. The summer workshop is part of the NSF-funded project entitled “Multi-Scale Integrative Approach to Digital Health: Collaborative Research and Education in Smart Health in West Virginia and Arkansas (WVAR-CRESH).” Dr. Agarwal is the Arkansas PI of the project.
PACIS 2024: Analysis of the South China Sea Conflict
The Pacific-Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) leads research dedicated to information science on the Pacific Asia region, and is the only Association for Information Systems (AIS) conference dedicated to the region. This year, the theme was “Preparing The Next Generation For The IT-Driven Future”: in the context of emerging technologies that are reshaping industries and societies, information systems education must evolve with the landscape—ensuring young individuals are prepared to embrace and lead changes in the field. To bridge the gap between traditional education and changing IT demands, the conference focused on innovative teaching methods, advanced curriculum design, and a collaboration between academia and industry.
Research Spotlight: Domestic Extremism across Social Media Platforms
In this month’s research spotlight, COSMOS highlights recent research that investigates the temporal distribution of topics within digital echo chambers. Specifically, the study authored by Dr. Esther Mead, Hillary Woodworth, and Dr. Nitin Agarwal titled, “Text Mining Domestic Extremism Topics on Multiple Social Media Platforms” looked at “Balkanized” (i.e., divided, mutually hostile groups) digital spaces utilized by certain social media actors on Parler, Twitter, and YouTube. The study was published at the 6th International Conference on Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (DMKD 2024), which took place virtually from June 7 to 9, and at the 5th International Conference on Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing (CLNLP 2024), which was held in Yinchuan, China from July 19 to 21.
Cosmographer Corner: Dr. Kiran Kumar Bandeli, Data Scientist
COSMOS, in this edition of Cosmographer Corner, highlights the work of former University of Arkansas at Little Rock graduate and Cosmographer Dr. Kiran Kumar Bandeli.
Dr. Bandeli—who is now a Senior Data Scientist and Manager at Walmart—started his graduate education at UA Little Rock in 2014, studying for his master’s in information quality. After starting his PhD, he joined COSMOS as research assistant in 2017. He received his PhD in computer & information sciences in 2019. We interviewed Dr. Bandeli on where his career is now and what his work at COSMOS entailed, with his responses below.
Ridwan Amure Awarded 2024 Acxiom Diversity Scholarship
This year’s Acxiom Diversity Scholarship award marks its 12th year as a program, which awards the scholarship to 10 students nationwide. It provides $5,000 in aid for US students from diverse backgrounds that are studying graduate or higher technology degrees full-time. Acxiom is a tech company based in Conway, Arkansas, and with programs such as this it fosters education in computer sciences, informational sciences, and mathematics and engineering. The company’s initiative aims to increase equality by funding the education of the underprivileged or underrepresented. Ridwan, a PhD student in computer science, hails from Nigeria and is experienced in data science, machine learning, and data analytics. Ridwan goes into what his research entails and how this scholarship will help his educational path.
New Cosmographer Hire: Rahul Dhanvi Hired as Data Engineer
COSMOS just hired a new data engineer, Rahul Dhanvi! Rahul graduated with a master’s degree in computer science from Arizona State University (ASU), and has now joined the COSMOS Research Center. During his master’s program, he researched and fine-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs). We spoke with Rahul about his aspirations and goals for the role, what he brings to it, and how he heard about and was attracted to COSMOS.