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
    Join my research lab, 2AI: Applied Artificial Intelligence
    (News) On-going hiring: Faculty, PostDoc, PhD, and MS students. Join me at the USD Computer Science Department.

    (News, March 2024) AI Saftey Institute Conosortium, NIST: joined as a PI for USD for Task Forces: #1, #2, #4, and #5 (NIST and USD News).

    (News, Fall 2023) Computer science enrollment. Record-setting graduate enrollment (in the state of SD): ~0 percent growth - from a low of 10-12 students, in 3 years.

    (News, Summer 2023) ABET re-accreditation (22-23 cycle): successful - no deficiencies, weaknesses, or concerns!

    PhD in Data Science & Engineering. Click here.

    AI programs (brochure): The first AI programs in the state: Specialization and Certificate (offline & online).

    Bioinformatics graduate certificate. Click here (online).

    Data science undergrad certificate for both CS and non-CS majors. Click here (online).

    Professional membership & service ABET Program Evaluator (PEV) | ACM Distinguished Speaker | IEEE Senior Member | IEEE Computer Society Chair R4 | IEEE Ambassador | ACM Member (plus Faculty Advisor) | IAPR TC-10 Educational Officer

    Meeting venues IEEE CVPR & IEEE CAI | RTIP2R | CBMS | USD's AI symposium | SPIE Medical Imaging

Biography

Get bull's-eye biography: PDF (January 2023, updated).

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 Center for AI Research & Enginneering 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).

Prof. Santosh has demonstrated expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition and computer vision with various application domains such as healthcare informatics and medical imaging, document imaging, biometrics, forensics, speech/audio analysis, and Internet of Things. Having secured substantial funding totaling over $8.0 million from sources like SDCRGP, SDBOR, DOED, NSF, and the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD), he has authored 10 books and more than 250 peer-reviewed research articles in reputed venues such as IEEE Trans. on PAMI, IEEE Trans. on Medical Imaging, IEEE Trans. on Instrumentation and Measurement, and IEEE J of Biomedical Health Informatics. He is an associate editor of multiple prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, Int. J of Machine Learning & Cybernetics, and Int. J of Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence.

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

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 three years. He 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.

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)
  • 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)
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.

  • (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