Praveen Rao, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Director of Graduate Studies for Ph.D. in Informatics

225 Naka Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri

ACM and IEEE Senior Member

praveen DOT rao AT missouri DOT edu

Biography

Dr. Praveen Rao is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Missouri (MU). His research interests are in the areas of big data management, data science, health informatics, and cybersecurity. He directs the Scalable Data Science (SDS) Lab at MU. His research, teaching, and outreach activities have been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), the University of Missouri System (Tier 1 grant, Tier 3 grant), University of Missouri Research Board, and companies. He is a Co-PI for the NSF IUCRC Center for Big Learning. At MU, he is a core faculty of the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics and the CERI Center. He is a core scientist of the Washington University Center for Diabetes Translation Research funded by NIH. He is a Senior Member of the ACM (2020) and IEEE (2015).

At MU, Dr. Rao spent two and half wonderful years as a tenured associate professor in the Department of Health Management & Informatics with joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. Prior to joining MU, he was a tenured associate professor in the Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering at University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), where he spent twelve and half wonderful years. In 2010, he received the IBM Smarter Planet Faculty Innovation Award. In 2013, he was one of the 14 professors world-wide to receive the IBM Big Data and Analytics Faculty Award. In 2015 and 2016, he was selected as a fellow in the U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Program. In 2015, he spent part of his summer as a visiting researcher at the Xerox Research Center India (XRCI). In 2016, he received the prestigious National Research Council (NRC) Research Associateship Award to conduct research at the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, NY for one year. In 2016, he received UMKC's Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers, Scholars, and Artists. In 2018, he received UMKC's N.T. Veatch Award for distinguished research and creativity. He served as the faculty advisor of the Missouri Epsilon Chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) at UMKC.

Dr. Rao received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Arizona in 2007 and 2001, respectively. He was supervised by Prof. Bongki Moon. In 2007, he received the Graduate Student Research Award for his dissertation work at the University of Arizona. Dr. Rao received his B.E. degree in Computer Engineering from University of Pune in 1999. During 2001-2002, he worked as a software engineer for Amazon in Seattle.

Recent Professional Service

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Software