News & Media

 I often provide interviews to news and media publications on my work in social computing and combating emerging socio-cognitive threats. Below is a list of my past media interviews and appearances for various statewide, national, and international media. For interview requests, please get in touch with my office.

1. Delivered invited talk on “Health Disinformation and Influence in Networks” for WVAR-CRESH Summer Workshop on AI and Smart Health 2024, West Virginia University, July 17-19, 2024.

2. Delivered invited talk on "Understanding and Mitigating Collective Action-based Socio-cognitive Security Threats in a Multi-platform Multimedia-rich Information Environment" at Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI), June 4, 2024, Stockholm, Sweden.

3. Guest column in Arkansas Center for Data Sciences on “AI and Deepfakes" published on March 24, 2024.

4. Delivered invited talk on “Developing Socio-computational Approaches to Mitigate Socio-cognitive Security Threats in a Multi-platform Multimedia-rich Information Environment” at New York University’s Computational Disinformation Symposium. December 5, 2023.

5. Featured in Arkansas Democrat Gazette for receiving a $5 million grant from the US Army Research Office to combat the misinformation disease that has spread like cancer. December 2, 2023.

6. Featured in KUAR Newscast (at 3:10 mark) for receiving a grant to study "cognitive attacks" online. November 29, 2023.

7. Featured by Arkansas Business for receiving $5 million in funding from the US Army to combat social media manipulation. November 27, 2023. 

8. Featured by Arkansas Talk Business and Politics for receiving a $5 million grant from the US Army to study information campaigns. November 27, 2023. 

9. Featured by KARK for being awarded $5 million from the US Army Research Office to fight online disinformation. November 27, 2023.

10. Featured by Fox16 Arkansas for receiving a $5 million grant from the US Department of Defense/Army Research Office to fight online disinformation. November 27, 2023.

11. Featured in Arkansas Advocate for receiving a $5 million grant from the US Army for anti-disinformation research. November 28, 2023. 

12. Delivered invited talk on “Developing Socio-computational Approaches to Mitigate Socio-cognitive Security Threats in a Multi-platform Multimedia-rich Information Environment” at the NATO Science & Technology Organization Symposium on Mitigating and Responding to Cognitive Warfare (STO-MP-HFM-361). November 13-14, 2023, Madrid, Spain.

13. Received Distinguished Service Award from IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2023) for exemplary service to the research community as conference co-chair, November 8, 2023, Kusadasi, Turkey.

14. Economic impact of my research and innovation-driven contributions to Arkansas were featured in the "Impact Study: Competing for Arkansas' Future" by Arkansas Research Alliance. September 13, 2023

15. Appeared on the Braver Angels podcast “On The Other Hand“ to speak about Social Media Influence, published on August 30, 2023. Part 1| Part 2

16. Guest column in Arkansas Center for Data Sciences on “The Technology of Influence“ published on August 24, 2023.

17. Featured in Arkansas Business “UA Little Rock’s Nitin Agarwal Pioneering ‘Social Computing’“ by Lara Farrar. July 10, 2023.

18. Featured in US Army Research Office Year in Review 2022 Magazine as a success story for research titled "Developing Research Infrastructure to Strengthen Socio-Cognitive Security for Combating Misinformation and Deviant Connective Action". June 14, 2023.

19. Best Paper Award for our paper on “Commenter Behavior Characterization on YouTube Channels,” published at the Fifteenth International Conference on Information, Process, and Knowledge Management (eKNOW 2023), April 24 – 28, 2023, Venice, Italy.

20. Featured in Arkansas Business for receiving a grant from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to study social media safety. April 10, 2023.

21. Best Paper Award for our paper on “Comparing Toxicity Across Different Social Media,” published at the Ninth International Conference on Human and Social Analytics (HUSO 2023), March 13 – 17, 2023, Barcelona, Spain.

22. Best Paper Award for our paper on “Examining Content and Emotion Bias in YouTube’s Recommendation Algorithm,” published at the Ninth International Conference on Human and Social Analytics (HUSO 2023), March 13 – 17, 2023, Barcelona, Spain.

23. Interviewed by James Morgan at the Arkansas Center for Data Science in the ACDS January 2023 Newsletter on the current state of the social media. “Q & A with Nitin Agarwal: January 2023“, January 20, 2023.

24. Best paper nomination for our paper on “Measuring the Interference Effect of Bots in Disseminating Opposing Viewpoints Related to COVID-19 on Twitter Using Epidemiological Modeling” published at the 56th Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), January 3-6, 2023, Maui.

25. Best Presentation Award for our paper on Multimodal Characterization of Emotion within Multimedia Space presented at the International Conference on Computers and Computation (COMPUTE 2022), November 03-04, 2022, San Francisco, United States.

26. Best Paper Award for our paper on A Multidimensional Analysis of YouTube Communities in the Indo-Pacific Region. The Twelfth International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2022), October 16 – 20, 2022, Lisbon, Portugal.

27. Best Paper Award for our paper on Extracting and Visualizing Narratives from Social Video Sharing Platforms. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Human and Social Analytics (HUSO 2022), May 22 – May 26, 2022, Venice, Italy.

28. Awarded Top Complete Paper for our study entitled “A Computational Framework for Analyzing Social Behavior in Online Connective Action: A COVID-19 Lockdown Protest Case Study” at the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS 2022). August 10-14, 2022, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

29. Our COVID-19 Misinformation tracker was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the key technological innovations developed across the world to address the COVID-19 pandemic. February 21, 2022

30. Interviewed by FM 89.1 KUAR (Remington Miller) about the grant to research covert online information campaign. February 8, 2022.

31. Featured in Arkansas Business, The Ritz Herald, and India West for receiving a grant by the US Department of Defense to study covert online information campaigns. Feb 1, 2022.

32. Featured in ITArkansas’ “When did Social Media become Anti-social Media? With Dr. Nitin Agarwal“. January 2022.

33. Best Paper Award for our paper on Developing Situational Awareness from Blogosphere: An Australian Case Study. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2021), October 3-7, 2021, Barcelona, Spain.

34. Recognized as one of the top 10 teams by NATO from 132 teams across 30 member nations that offer solutions to the challenge titled “The Invisible Threat: Countering Cognitive Warfare” organized by NATO’s Innovation Hub. November 30, 2021.

35. Featured in “This Month’s Q&A Interview” with James Morgan from Arkansas Center for Data Sciences. November 23, 2021.

36. Won the Disinformation Challenge Award for our paper on Optimizing Response Time to Minimize Spreading of Conspiracy Theories in Dynamic Social Networks at the 2021 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction, and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS 2021), July 6-9, 2021, Washington D.C.

37. Best Paper Award for our paper on Studying the Dynamics of COVID-19 Misinformation Themes using Topic Streams. In Proceedings of The Seventh International Conference on Human and Social Analytics (HUSO 2021), July 18-22, 2021. Nice, France.

38. Featured in Daily Record, Arkansas Money & Politics, Magnolia Reporter, India West for receiving a grant by the US Department of Defense to investigate covert online influence.

39. Recipient of 2021 UALR Faculty Excellence Award for Research and Creative Endeavors. April 15, 2021.

40. Recipient of 2021 Donaghey College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (DCSTEM) Faculty Excellence Award for Research and Creative Endeavors. February 15, 2021.

41. Featured in Arkansas Money & Politics’ Discover Economics magazine as Social Media Warrior, December 16, 2020.

42. Research on How YouTube spreads COVID-19 misinformation featured in Democracy Labs, December 14, 2020. (Video)

43. Best Paper Award for our paper on YouTube Video Categorization Using Moviebarcode. In proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Human and Social Analytics (HUSO 2020), October 18-22, 2020, Porto, Portugal.

44. Research featured in Arkansas Democrat Gazette, UALR hub of misinformation study – Professor’s work on bots, other information tech draws $1.5M in funding by Frank Lockwood, November 2, 2020.

45. Interviewed by KARK Channel 4 (Arkansas) for “developing a web-based tool to detect social media bots”, August 12, 2020.

46. Combatting Disinformation in the Digital World, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International, May 22, 2020.

47. Interviewed by KARK Channel 4 (Arkansas) for “Local group helps to stop the spread of COVID-19 misinformation“, May 19, 2020.

48. Interviewed by KATV Channel 7 (Arkansas) for Identifying misinformation and myths about COVID-19, May 12, 2020.

49. COSMOS to partner with the Arkansas Office of the Attorney General to track false COVID-19 Websites and Scams Online. April 6, 2020.

50. Nominated to Arkansas Research Alliance as a fellow, December 13, 2018, Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas Democrat Gazette | KARK | NWA – Fox 24

51. Nominated to Arkansas Academy of Computing as a fellow, November 6, 2018, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

52. Best Paper Award for our paper on Understanding Digital Ethnography: Socio-computational Analysis of Trending YouTube Videos. In Proceedings of the eighth International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2018), October 14 – 18, 2018, Nice, France.

53. Mentioned in Arkansas Business, May 21, 2018, entitled “UA Little Rock Professor Shows Ways of Fighting Propaganda”, by Sarah Campbell-Miller.

54. Research mentioned by Indiawest, April 5, 2018, entitled “University of Arkansas-Little Rock Study Uncovering Secrets of Blogosphere, Analyzing Fake News Spread Via Social Media”.

55. Mentioned in Arkansas Times special cover story on Visionary Arkansans 2017: A celebration of Arkansans with ideas and achievements of transformative power, November 9, 2017 by Jacob Rosenberg.

56. Best Paper Award for our paper on Assessing Situation Awareness through Blogosphere: A Case Study on Venezuelan Socio-Political Crisis and the Migrant Influx. In Proceedings of the seventh International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2017), October 8-12, 2017, Athens, Greece.

57. Mentioned on Arkansas Democrat Gazette in October 29, 2017 edition under Business Awards section. Also available at Arkansas Online.

58. Article entitled “UA Little Rock professor researches influence of social media bots” published by Talk Business and Politics, October 4, 2017 by Jennifer Joyner

59. Highlighted in the American Association of State College and Universities (AASCU), October 4, 2017 for joining the new Department of Homeland Security-funded consortium on Crime Investigation and Network Analysis (CINA).

60. Article entitled “Pro-Russian Bots Sharpen Online Attacks for 2018 U.S. Vote” published by Bloomberg, September 1, 2017 by Nafeesa Syeed.

61. FM 89.1 KUAR Interviewed by Jacob Kauffman for Morning Edition, July 4, 2017. Click here to listen to the interview.

62. Article entitled “UA-Little Rock Professor Awarded $1.5M to Study Cyber Propaganda Campaigns” published by Arkansas Business, June 13, 2017.

63. Article entitled “Military Supports Research at UALR” published by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 11, 2017, Sunday Edition front page of Section B.

64. Nominated IARIA Fellow in Winter 2016/Spring 2017. IARIA is the International Academy, Research and Industry Association (IARIA). IARIA recognizes roughly 10 scientists world-wide for their outstanding scientific research results endorsed by international peers, exceptional scientific contribution to the IARIA events, and continuous leadership roles in IARIA conferences.

65. Nominated by UALR Office of Communications’ Experience UALR program as Outstanding Professor in the area of Social Media Security on November 17, 2016.

66. Article, entitled “UALR Team Presents Research at NATO Conference” published by Arkansas Business on November 17, 2016.

67. Best Paper Award for our paper on Understanding User-Based Modifications to Information Quality in Response to Privacy and Trust Related Concerns in Online Social Networks. In Proceedings of the sixth International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2016), August 21 – 25, 2016, Rome, Italy.

68. Article, entitled “UALR Professor Nitin Agarwal Fights Terrorists” published by Arkansas Business on June 20, 2016 by Sarah Campbell.

69. Article, entitled “West gathers digital arsenal against Islamic State – to what effect?” published by The Gazette, Colorado Springs on February 10, 2016 by Julie Poucher Harbin. [Originally published at the Religion News Service (RNS)]

70. Article, entitled “How ISIS Exploits the Lawless Wild West of Social Media” published by Arkansas Money and Politics – The power of Business on January 12, 2016.

71. Best Paper Award for our paper on Helping Hands of Autism Blogger Community in Social Media Platforms. In Proceedings of the fifth International Conference on Social Media Technologies, Communication, and Informatics (SOTICS 2015), November 15 – 20, 2015, Barcelona, Spain. Research mentioned in news by: UALR News.

72. Recipient of the Social Media 2015 Educator of the Year Award by the 21st International Education and Technology Conference, Cyberport, Hong Kong SAR, China, 10-12 April 2015. The Educator of the Year award is to recognize the Springer author/educators who have made/are making a difference in the ICT Education/Research.

73. Recipient of Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Chair Professorship of Information Science at UALR.

74. Recipient of 2015 UALR Faculty Excellence Award for Research and Creative Endeavors.

75. Recipient of 2015 Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology Faculty Excellence Award for Research and Creative Endeavors.

76. Best Publication of 2012 Award at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) in Milan, Italy (December 17, 2013) for our article “Raising and Rising Voices in Social Media: A Novel Methodological Approach in Studying Cyber-Collective Movements” which appeared in Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), 2012, 3, pp. 113-126. The article was nominated by BISE editors and chosen from many other nominations from all information systems journals worldwide by the Senior Scholars Consortium, International Conference on Information Systems. This article is a direct product from our National Science Foundation research grant, “Collaborative Research: Cyber-collectiveMovements: Novel Socio-computational Approaches in Studying the Blogosphere.” We dedicate this award to the many Saudi women who keep on fighting for their rights. We dedicate this award to women all over the world who struggle for their rights.

77. IEEE Computer Society Certificate of Appreciation for outstanding service as Tutorials Co-Chair for the ACM/IEEE Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2013) committee.

78. Recognized as one of “The New Influentials: 20 In Their 20s” by Arkansas Business for being among creative and talented individuals who have found not only early success in their profession but also show future potential to step up as a leader in Arkansas business or politics to highlight their accomplishments within their businesses, organizations or community. [UALR Article]

79. National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored our research on “Cyber-collective Movements: Novel Socio-computational Approaches in Studying the Blogosphere”. The research is funded in part by the National Science Foundation’s Social-Computational Systems (SoCS) Program and Human Centered Computing Program. Research mentioned in news by: UALR News, Newswise

80. Best Paper Award for Context Based Privacy Model. In the 2nd International Symposium on Privacy and Security Applications (PSA-10) held in conjunction with IEEE International Conference on Privacy, Security, Risk, and Trust (PASSAT 2010). pp.1050-1055. August 20-22, 2010, Minneapolis, MN. Research mentioned in news by: NSF Science360, US News, UALR News, PhysOrg, Dr Dobbs Journal

81. Research on Blog Mining has been acknowledged by the School of Computing and Informatics, Arizona State University, as groundbreaking.

82. Recognized as an Outstanding Ph.D. student finalist by the School of Computing and Informatics at Arizona State University.

83. Received SIAM Data Mining Doctoral Forum Award in 2009.

84. Received GPSA Conference Travel Awards and DGS Conference Travel Awards.