Prof. KC Santosh-a highly accomplished AI expert-is the Chair of the Department of Computer Science and the founding director of the Applied AI Research Lab at the University of South Dakota (USD). He also served the National Institutes of Health as a research fellow and LORIA Research Center as a postdoctoral research scientist, in collaboration with industrial partner, ITESOFT, France. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science-Artificial Intelligence from INRIA Nancy Grand East Research Center (France). With funding exceeding $8 million from sources like DOD, 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. 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). 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. As the founder of AI programs at USD, he has taken significant strides to increase enrolment in the graduate program, resulting in over 3,000% growth in just three 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. Dr. Poonam Nandal is an esteemed academic and researcher with an impressive career spanning over 17 years. Her academic journey reached its pinnacle with a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from YMCA University of Science & Technology in 2017. Complementing this, she holds a Master's degree in Computer Engineering from Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak, showcasing a comprehensive educational background. Dr. Nandal scholarly impact is evidenced by her substantial contributions, including 6 patents and more than 40 research papers published in esteemed conferences and peer-reviewed journals. These publications are indexed in renowned databases such as Scopus, WoS, EBSCO, and UGC Care, underscoring her dedication to advancing knowledge in her field. Beyond her research, she actively participates in advisory and editorial capacities for respected peer-reviewed journals. Sandeep Kumar Sood received the Ph.D. degree in computer science and engineering from IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, India, in 2010. He is currently working as a Head and an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Applications, N.I.T. Kurukshetra, Haryana, India. He has authored or coauthored more than 115 SCI/SCIE indexed research publications. According to Google Scholar, the citation number is, with an h-index equal to 34 and i10-index equal to 96. His research interests include network and information security, fog computing, cloud computing, IoT, and big data analytics. Hari is in data science and artificial intelligence at the school of technology Bournemouth University, UK. He was featured in the World Ranking list of Top 2% scientists by Stanford University. He is specialized in Computer Science & Engineering. His research area includes artificial intelligence, soft computing techniques, natural language processing, language acquisition, machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision. Hari is the author of various books in computer science engineering (algorithms, programming and evolutionary algorithms). Hari has published over 150 scientific papers in reputed journals and conferences. He is serving in the editorial board of reputed journals as action editor, associate editor, and guest editor. He is a reviewer of top international conferences such as GECCO, CEC, IJCNN, BMVC, AAAI etc. Hari has delivered expert talks as keynote and invited speaker. He is a fellow of the HEA of the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) and has a rich teaching experience at the higher education level. He has been given the prestigious award "The Global Award for the Best Computer Science Faculty of the Year 2015", award for completing INDO-US project "GENTLE", award (Certificate of Exceptionalism) from the Prime Minister of India and award for developing innovative teaching and learning models for higher-education. In the past, he has worked as a sr. lecturer in the computer science department at Edge Hill University, UK. He also worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in machine learning at the school of technology at Middlesex University London where he worked on a European Commission project- DREAM4CARS
