Bio

My research at USC seeks to investigate the moonshot problems in Artificial Intelligence that change (for the better) the way we live, think and work. My work over the last 6 years has been applied in high-impact domains, such as disaster response, electronic commerce, financial corruption, and human trafficking, and received press in international venues such as Popular Science, The World Economic Forum and Big Think. My latest book, 'Knowledge Graphs: Fundamentals, Techniques and Applications', was published by MIT Press in 2021. I have broad educational experience, with degrees in computer science (M.Sc., Ph.D.) and engineering, banking and finance, philosophy, and business administration (MBA). My students have gone to work in both academia and all the major Big Tech firms. I have published more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, in areas as diverse as semantic web, data mining, machine learning, AI for social good, science & diplomacy, computational social science, and engineering applications of AI. My research is currently supported by two AI projects funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). I am the recipient of a Key Scientific Challenges Award by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a USC Excellence in Mentoring Award, two MENSA awards for intellectual and creative achievements, an international best dissertation award by the Semantic Science Web Association, and a SIAM Science Policy fellowship. I have a deep passion in giving back to the community, and regularly commit to outreach, mentorship, public speaking, and professional service. I currently serve as reviewer, program committee member, guest editor and co-chair of several conferences, symposia and journals in AI and computational social science. I am always looking to meet and hire talented students and professionals in my group, and on occasion, as time permits, I also advise startups and commercial entities.