Dr. Biplav Srivastava

I am a Professor of Computer Science at the AI Institute at University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA. My Google researcher profile and LinkedIn profile round up the basics.

Background and Recognitions

Previously, I was at IBM for two decades in the roles of a Research Scientist (at IBM Research; 18 years), Distinguished Data Scientist (at Chief Analytics Office; 2 years) and Master Inventor. In my 25+ years work experience, I have done research in Artificial Intelligence, Services Computing and Sustainability, mostly at IBM Research, as well as lead in commercial, deadline-oriented, software development organizations in both India and US. I have been recognized as an ACM Distinguished Scientist (Dec 2014), AAAI Senior Member (Feb 2020), IEEE Senior Member (December 2018), ACM Distinguished Speaker*(September 2013-2019), an IBM Master Inventor (Nov2019, Nov 2014 & Nov 2011, each for 3-year terms), and ACM Senior Member (August 2012).

In Feb 2020, I was selected as one of the twelve 2020-2021 Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellows by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (announcement; 2020-2021 AAAS Leshner Fellows for short). I plan to spend the year promoting effective, ethical and safe use of AI, especially conversation agents, for pressing social problems. Details about the Leshner program is here.

Research Interests

My current thinking on technical work is captured in a research statement (Sep 2019). Essentially, my research deals with enabling people to make rational decisions despite real world complexities of poor data, changing goals and limited resources by augmenting their cognitive limitations with technology. The work has lead to many science firsts and high-impact commercial innovations ($B+), 180+ papers and 65+ US patents issued, and awards for demos and hacks. I have interacted with commercial customers, universities and governments, represented institution at standard bodies, and assisted business leaders at highest levels with technical issues. Apart from IP creation, I have lead patent committees made up of technical and legal members to build patent portfolios for a decade.

My current focus is on promoting goal-oriented, ethical, human-machine collaboration using learning and reasoning. I have applied them along with sensor and open data in domains like water, traffic, space (AAAI 2018 best demo award), room (ICAPS 2018 best demo runner-up) and health.

Call for Collaboration

I am looking for enthusiastic and curious students, particularly at PhD and Post-doc levels, to work on exciting problems in AI. A few are: collaborative assistants, trusted AI and applications to smart city (water, traffic, health). I am always keen to work with public sector and innovative companies to accelerate technology adoption.

By Technology

• AI (Analytics) – Learning, Reasoning, Representation, Ethics, Constraints, Scheduling

  • Machine Learning – deep learning, adversarial attacks, bias, classification, clustering, recommendation; ML Tools: Tensorflow/ Tensorboard, Keras, scikit-learn, Weka

  • Reasoning – planning, scheduling, parameter tuning, preferences, satisfiability

  • Representation – ontology modeling, evolution, extraction from text, semantic web services

• Data - Semantic Web, Open and Big Data, Provenance, Data Mining, Information Extraction, Sensors;

• Business Integration – Web Computing Models, Asset Reuse, Service Delivery Optimization, Business Processes;

  • Cloud Computing – APIs/REST, Web Services, Devops

  • Languages: Python, Java, C++/C, Common Lisp, Prolog

By Industry

Smart City (including Water, Transportation, Governance), Airlines, Telecommunication, Health, Retail

Information Available

Go to research (papers, patents, tools), teaching, communication (talks, technical blogs, client interactions, professional activities, opinions and research ideas for community) and resume.

Personal Note

I am involved in a privately funded non-governmental organization doing public service in India detailed here.