KC Santosh, PhD
Professor (AI) and Chair, Department of Computer Science, The University of South Dakota
Founding Director, Applied AI Research Lab
Email: kc.santosh@usd.edu
Phone: (605) 658-6841


Biography

Prof. KC Santosh, a highly accomplished AI expert, is the Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of South Dakota (USD). He is also the founding director of the Applied AI Lab at USD. He served the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a research fellow. Before that, he worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at the LORIA research centre, Universite de Lorraine in direct collaboration with industrial partner, ITESOFT, France. He earned his PhD in Computer Science - Artificial Intelligence from the INRIA Nancy Grand Est research centre (France). With funding exceeding $8 million from sources like DOD, DOE, NSF, ED, and SDBOR, he has authored 10 books and more than 250 peer-reviewed research articles, including IEEE TPAMI. He serves as an associate editor for esteemed journals such as IEEE Transactions on AI, Int. J of Machine Learning & Cybernetics, and Int. J of Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence.

As the founder of AI programs at USD, he has taken significant strides to increase enrollment in the graduate program, resulting in over 3,000% growth in just four years. His leadership has helped build multiple inter-disciplinary AI/Data Science related academic programs, including collaborations with Biology, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Sustainability and Business Analytics departments. Prof. Santosh is highly motivated in academic leadership, and his contributions have established USD as a pioneer in AI programs within the state of SD.

To name a few, Prof. Santosh is the proud recipient of the Visionary Leadership Award (University of Derby - UK, 2023), the Cutler Award for Teaching and Research Excellence (USD, 2021), the President's Research Excellence Award (USD, 2019), and the Ignite Award from the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS, 2014).

Effective from Spring 2024, he has joined the NIST's AI Safety Institute Consortium, with USD being the only institution representing the state of South Dakota in this consortium.

Recent grant proposals (funded):
    (Summer 24) DED - $6.5 million: Biomedical Computational Research.
    (Spring 24) NSF - $0.499 million: Research Infrastructure: CC* Campus Compute: Lawrence 2.0: Advancing Multi-Disciplinary Research and Education in South Dakota.
    (Spring 2024) SDBOR - $0.745 million: Biomedical Computation Collaborative - AI Intensive.
    (Spring 2023) DOD - $1 million: AI/ML Capacity Building at USD. Click here.

Editor (journals): Chair (conferences): Review panelist (research grant proposals):
Awards/recognitions & scholarships
  • Visionary Leadership Award, University of Derby, UK (2023)
  • Cutler (Richard and Sharon) Faculty Award in Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Sciences, USD (2021)
  • The Choice #Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) of the year for a book titled "#MedicalImaging: Artificial Intelligence, Image Recognition, and Machine Learning Techniques," Association of College and Research Libraries (2020) Follow links: OAT award, 2020 (Book); Certificate, Taylor & Francis Group; and OAT award, Taylor & Francis Group (Engineering).
  • President's #Award for Research Excellence, USD (2019)
  • #Professor of the Game: Certificate of recognition (academic achievement), Academic Affairs, USD (2019, 2020)
  • Belbas-Larson #Award for Excellence in #Teaching (Nomination), USD (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023)
  • Senior Member, #IEEE (2018)
  • Best Paper #Awards (5 Conferences)
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (#HHS) Ignite #Award (2014)
  • INRIA-CORDI #Fellowship for Fresh FP-6 Strep, European Project (2008-2011)
  • Asian Development Bank-Japan #Scholarship (2005-2007)
Publications (research, samples only)
Recent talks
Important note. I delivered more than 80 plenary/keynote talks at the international conference/university events. If you are looking at me for a talk, click ACM Distinguished Speaker and submit your request.

  • (August 26-30, 2024) Sustainable AI solutions for medical imaging informatics. Computational Neuroscience, Neurotechnology and Neuro-inspired AI Summer School, Ulster university, UK
  • (August 15-16, 2024) Human-in-loop machine learning - how big data is big to begin with? International Conference on Multimedia Analysis and Pattern Recognition, Vietnam
  • (June 12, 2024) #AI and #GenerativeAI - Ethical Concerns. South Dakota State Bar Annual Convention, Pierre, South Dakota
  • (June 11-12, 2024) Chips and Science Act, Sustainable AI, and the Future. IEEE-USA Innovation, Workforce, and Research Conference, South Dakota
  • (April 07, 2024) Building sustainable AI for all, TEDx Talk - USD
  • (March 15-16, 2024) Explainable AI (xAI): who to blame - data or model? 6th International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Pattern Recognition, odisha, India
  • (December 07-08 2023) #AIforGood, but how about carbon footprint? 6th International Conference on Recent Trends in Image Processing & Pattern Recognition, University of Derby, UK
  • (Nov 8-10, 2023) Human-in-loop machine learning - how big data is big to begin with? 15th International Conference on Intelligent Human-Computer Interaction, South Korea
  • (September 20, 2023) Machine learning in healthcare - let us go beyond one-way test or automation? The University of Chicago Medicine
  • (August 12-13, 2023) Big data issue, no worries - active learning is the must! 9th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing and Intelligence Systems, Dali, Yunnan Province of China
  • (July 24-26 2023) Responsible AI or human? MGM's Health Sciences Institute, Mumbai, India
  • (July 22-23, 2023) Explainable AI model or data? Applied AI Workshop, Central University of Karnataka, India
  • (July 20, 2023) Machine learning for medical imaging informatics - deep or shallow? Summer School of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society on Computational Advances in Deep Learning and Applications, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad, India
  • (July 16, 2023) Trust me, AI is not for computer scientists! Banasthali University, India
  • (June 01, 2023) AI & Ethics Panel. Grreat Plains Network Annual Meeting, Kansas City, MO (May 31 - 02, 2023) [recording - address, YouTube]
  • (May 25, 2023) The Human Connection - Artificial Intelligence (people, governance, and tooling). South Dakota Hunamnities Council, SD
  • (May 09, 2023) AI/Data Science - from Healthcare to Housing Industry? Mountain Plains Housing Summit, SiouxFalls, SD (May 08 - 10, 2023) [recording - address, YouTube]
  • (May 02, 2023) AI is the dealbreaker, and so is active learning! APEC symposium on ICT Skill Standards for Artificial Intelligence, Bangkok, Thailand
  • (March 28, 2023) AI is dealbreaker - #activelearning, #bigdata, #carbonfootprint, #sustainableAI, and #greencomputing. USD's third AI symposium, Vermillion, SD [recording - YouTube]
  • (Feb 07, 2023) Few-shot Learning in an #Activelearning Framework to Understand Future #Epidemics. SDSU Data Science Symposium, Brookings, SD
  • (Feb 07, 2023) #AIforgood - Utopia or dystopia? USD Utopia/Dystopia Symposium, Vermillion, SD
  • (Feb 07, 2023) Few-shot Learning in an #Activelearning Framework to Understand Future #Epidemics. SDSU Data Science Symposium, Brookings, SD
  • (Nov 21, 2022) #Activelearning to Minimize the Possible Risk from Future #Epidemics. IEEE Computer Science Society - Hyderabad section, JNTU, Hyderabad, India
  • (Nov 18, 2022) #MedicalImagingInformatics - #eXplainableAI. 6th International Conference on Intelligent Comput- ing and Communication, GNITS, Hyderabad, India
  • (Aug 13, 2022) #eXplainableAI for #healthcare in #activelearning framework.
    23rd New Frontiers in Computing Conference (NFIC 20222), IEEE Computer Society Santa Clara Valley Chapter, Silcon Valley
  • (Aug 12, 2022) #Activelearning in healthcare - infectious disease outbreak.
    International Conference on Computer Vision and Machine Intelligence (CVMI) - IIIT, Allahabad, India
  • (July 23, 2022) #AI for Medical Imaging Informatics - Where have We Missed #Explainability?
    IEEE 35th International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS 2022), Shenzhen, China
  • (July 28, 2022) #eXplainableAI for Medical Imaging Informatics.
    9th International Conference on Machine Vision and Machine Learning (MVML 2023), Prague, Czech Republic
  • (June 20-28, 2022) #AIforGood and so does #machinelearning - #machinelearning for #physics and/or #physicists (case study - neutrino classification).
    PIRE-GEMARDAC, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada
  • (May 17, 2022) #AI for infrastructure secrity - Time to think about Critical Infrastructure Security
    VIT, Bhopal, India
  • (March 25, 2022) #AI for Medical Imaging Informatics - Where have We Missed #Explainability?
    College of Engineering and Technology (Seminar), East Carolina University
Research, scholarship, and creative activity
Service (university-wide and professional)
Books and proceedings (authored and edited) ...


Contact: Department of Computer Science
The University of South Dakota
414 E. Clark Street
Office #201, Arts & Sciences (Building)
Vermillion, SD 57069