Prof. Nitin Agarwal Speaks at AAOC Annual Meeting on Combating AI-based Cognitive Threats
COSMOS director Prof. Nitin Agarwal was recently invited to speak on “Fighting Fire with Fire: Examining and Mitigating Socio-Cognitive Threats” by the Arkansas Academy of Computing (AAoC) on October 12th. At the 2024 AAoC annual meeting, he spoke about how the COSMOS team combats digital misinformation and influence campaigns using AI-powered approaches.
Prof. Nitin Agarwal Appointed to Arkansas State AI Task Force
Dr. Nitin Agarwal has been appointed to a task force by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders to guide the ethical integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into Arkansas state government. The group will develop policies and evaluate projects like fraud detection and recidivism reduction over the next year. Agarwal has emphasized balancing innovation with transparency, fairness, and privacy to ensure public trust in AI. This initiative positions Arkansas as a leader in responsible AI adoption, aligning technological advancements with societal values.
New Cosmographer Hire: Pranavi Addagatla Hired as Data Engineer
COSMOS just hired a new data engineer, Pranavi Addagatla! Pranavi graduated with a master’s degree in Computer Science from Arizona State University, and has now joined the COSMOS Research Center. Her passion lies in improving and optimizing systems. During her master’s program, she worked as a software developer and UI designer. We spoke with Pranavi about her aspirations and goals for the role, what she brings to it, and how she heard about and was attracted to COSMOS.
Research Spotlight: Trends in YouTube Videos
In this month’s research spotlight, we highlight recent research from COSMOS that focuses on using YouTube videos to discover meaningful trends. Each studied different trends in YouTube data, such as popular narratives or algorithmic recommendation bias. These studies were published and presented recently at this year’s annual International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS 2024), which took place from 18 to 20 September in Pittsburgh, PA.
Cosmographer Corner: Dr. Therese Williams, Professor & Chair of Information Systems
Dr. Williams—who is now an associate professor and the chair of information systems and operations management (ISOM) for the College of Business at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO)—started her graduate education at UA Little Rock in 2014, studying for a PhD in computer science. Dr. Williams received her PhD in computer & information sciences in 2017. We interviewed Dr. Williams on where her career is now and what her work at COSMOS entailed, with her responses in the full article.