Debzani Deb

Biography

Debzani Deb is the RJ Reynolds Endowed Professor of Computer Science at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) and the founding director of the Center for Applied Data Science (CADS). She has authored or coauthored more than 50 refereed journal and conference articles. She has secured more than $4.4 million in external funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the University of North Carolina Research Opportunities Initiative (UNC ROI), the Mozilla Foundation, Google, and industry partners. She received the 2021 Wilveria B. Atkinson Distinguished Research Award at WSSU and has more than 15 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member in the United States, Australia, and Bangladesh.

Dr. Deb’s research focuses on generative AI, multimodal large language models, retrieval augmented generation, and the evaluation of AI systems. With a collaborator at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, her group builds AI tools that make NASA scientific archives and technical documentation easier to search and verify. In 2026 she was a Visiting Researcher at the Laboratory for Analytic Sciences at NC State University, where she worked on evaluating deep research systems and on streaming change detection for the NIST TREC 2026 Change Detection track. She also applies machine learning to problems in healthcare, cybersecurity, Earth science, geospatial analysis, and the social sciences. She leads projects that improve the quality and inclusivity of data science, AI, and computer science education.

Dr. Deb was program chair of the EduHPC workshop at the Supercomputing conference from 2018 to 2020 and Minority Serving Institution chair for the ACM SIGCSE organizing committee from 2023 to 2025. She delivered a keynote at the IEEE International Conference on Information Technology Research in 2025. She reviews regularly for the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC), IEEE Transactions on Education, the ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), the ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), IEEE Frontiers in Education (FIE), and the EduPar and EduHPC workshops, and serves on the IEEE ICTAI 2026 program committee.

Educational Background

PhD, Montana State University Bozeman, Montana, USA
MCompSci, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
MS, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh
BS, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh

Research and Project Interests

Applied Data Science
Large Language Models and Generative AI
AI Evaluation and Trustworthy AI
Machine Learning for Earth and Space Science Applications
Computer Science and AI Education

WXII 12 News, “WSSU launching AI safety curriculum for future educators and healthcare workers with $500,000 grant,” October 2026.
WSSU News and Information, WSSU receives grant to teach students how to use artificial intelligence responsibly and ethically, February 2024
Winston-Salem Journal, "WSSU receives two grants for an engineering program and a research project", September 2023
Winston-Salem Journal, “Transforming the Triad with data science”, March 2021
University of North Carolina (UNC) News Story, “WSSU awarded $1.5M grant to establish new Center for Applied Data Science”, September 29, 2020
UNC News Story, “WSSU Received one of the three ROI Grants that UNC awarded for 2021-2023” July 29, 2020

NSF, PI, “CyberAI Innovation: Modular AI Security Education for the Public Sector Workforce,” CyberAICorps Scholarship for Service (CyberAI SFS), Innovation Track, Award #2622950, $496,376.00, 2026 to 2029.
NSF, PI, "A data analytics certificate for non-computing majors," NSF IUSE CUE, Award #2245959, $409,799.00, 2023-2027
NASA, PI, "Institute for Multi-agent Perception through Advanced Cyber-Physical Technologies (IMPACT)," NASA MUREP/DEAP, $403,074.00, 2023-2026.
Mozilla Foundation, PI, "Integrating AI Ethics Modules into interdisciplinary courses at an HBCU," Responsible Computing Challenge, $149,743.00, 2023 – 2024
Google, PI, “TensorFlow Outreach Award” 10,000.00, 2022 – 2023.
NSF, PI, "Capacity Building for Research at Minority-Serving Institutions: Infrastructure Research Readiness (CyBR-MSI: IRR).," ASEE/NSF, $3,000.00, 2023.
NSF, Co-PI, “CISE-MSI: RCBP-RF: SCH: Mining Mobile Crowdsensing to Optimize Community Health Clinic Management”, Award Number: 2131100 $299,695.00, 2021-2023.
HanesBrands, PI, "Research Award to CADS", $50,000.00, 2021-2025.
Google, PI, “TensorFlow Outreach Award” 10,000.00, 2021 – 2022.
UNC Research Opportunities Initiative (ROI) Award, PI, "Winston-Salem State University Center for Applied Data Science (CADS)", $1,498,625, 2020-2023. UNC System Awards Three ROI Grants for 2021-2023.
Google Cloud Research Grant, PI, $5000, 2020-2021.
NSF, Co-PI, "Collaborative Research: Excellence in Research: Computational Framework and Data Science for Identification", Award Number: 1900087, $299,962.00, 2019-2022
NSF, Co-PI, "Targeted Infusion Project: "Integrating Data Science into the Urban Studies and Sustainability Program", Award Number: 1912214, $249,825.00, 2019-2022
NSF, Senior Personnel, "Collaborative Research: CyberTraining: Conceptualization: Planning a Sustainable Ecosystem for incorporating parallel and distributed computing into undergraduate education", Award Number: 2002649, $423,921.00, 2019-2021
NSF, PI, "Improving Research and Education of Big Data and Cloud Computing at Winston-Salem State University", Award Number: 1600864, $307,802.00, 2016 – 2019
UNC Collaboration Grant, Senior Personnel, "Research Cyberinfrastructure, A collaboration within WSSU, UNCG, and UNCW", $3000, 2017-2018
WSSU, PI, RIP Award: "Utility-based Resource Provisioning of Big Data Applications on Cloud Environment", $9,690, 2016 – 2017
WSSU Office of Science Initiatives (OSI) Teaching Innovation Award, PI, "Using Peer Instruction to Improve Student Engagement", $2,500, 2016 – 2017.
Google Community Tech Grant, Co-PI, "Increase awareness of computer science and technology among the under-resourced community of East Winston-Salem", $83,000, 2016 – 2017.
TCPP/NSF, PI, "CDER Center Early Adopter Award for Curriculum Initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing", $2500, 2015-2016.
NSF, Co-PI, "Targeted Infusion Project: Use of Mobile Application to Improve Active Learning and Student Participation in the Computer Science Classroom", Award Number: 1332531, $235,091, 2013-2017.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania(IUP) senate Fellowship Grant, PI, "Preliminary Investigation on Utilizing smart phones in Higher Education", $12,000, 2010-2011.

Curriculum Guidelines

Prasad, S. K., Estrada, T., Ghafoor, S., Gupta, A., Kant, K., Stunkel, C., Sussman, A., Vaidyanathan, R., Weems, C., Agrawal, K., Barnas, M., Brown, D. W., Bryant, R., Bunde, D. P., Busch, C., Deb, D., Freudenthal, E., Jaja, J., Parashar, M., Phillips, C., Robey, B., Rosenberg, A., Saule, E., Shen, C. 2020. NSF/IEEE-TCPP Curriculum Initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing - Core Topics for Undergraduates, Version II-beta, Online

Peer reviewed Journal and Series publications (last 5 years)

Smith, R., Deb D., Blizard, Z., Midgett, R., "A Planner's quest for identifying spatial (in)justice in local communities: A case study of urban census tracts in North Carolina, USA", Applied Geography, Volume 158, 2023, ISSN 0143-6228, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2023.103030.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0143622823001613)
Mickle, C., Deb, D. “Early prediction of patient discharge disposition in acute neurological care using machine learning”, BMC Health Services Research 22, 1281 (2022), Published by Springer Nature, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08615-w (Scopus CiteScore: 3.9)
Panlaqui, B-J, Fuad, M., Deb, D., Mickle C. “Path Forming of Healthcare Practitioners in an Indoor Space Using Mobile Crowdsensing”. Sensors, Published by MDPI, 22(19):7546, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3390/s22197546 (Scopus CiteScore: 6.4)
Deb, D., Smith, R. M. “Application of Random Forest and SHAP Tree Explainer in Exploring Spatial (In)Justice to Aid Urban Planning”, International Journal of Geo Information (ISPRS), Published by MDPI, Vol. 10(9), 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10090629 (Scopus CiteScore: 6.1)
Deb, D., Fuad M., “Integrating Big data and Cloud Computing Topics into the Computing Curricula: A modular Approach”, Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing (JPDC), Published by Elsevier, Vol. 157, 2021, pp. 303-315. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpdc.2021.07.012 (Scopus CiteScore: 9.8)
Taylor G., Deb, D., “Teaching AI Ethics in a Flipped Classroom”, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, Vol. 36, No. 5, 2021, pp. 67-76.
Fuad M., Deb, D., James E. and Gloster C., “Mobile Response System: A Novel Approach to Deliver Interactive and Hands-on Activity in the Classroom”, Journal of Educational Technology Research and Development, Published by Springer Nature, Vol. 66, No. 2, 2018, pp. 493- 514. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-018-9570-5 (Scopus CiteScore: 7.7)

Peer reviewed Conference/Workshop publications (last 5 years)

Panlaqui, B. -J. G., and Deb, D., "Convolutional Neural Networks: An Analysis of Varying Factors", IEEE SoutheastCon 2023, Orlando, FL, USA, 2023, pp. 348-349, doi: 10.1109/SoutheastCon51012.2023.10115075.
Fuad, M., Deb, D., Panlaqui, B. -J. G., and Mickle, C. F. , "Using RSSI to Form Path in an Indoor Space," 2022 IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), 2022, pp. 1-2, doi: 10.1109/ICCCN54977.2022.9868912.
Mickle, C. F., and Deb, D. "Predicting Patient Discharge Disposition in Acute Neurological Care," 2021 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), Orlando, FL, USA, 2021, pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/SSCI50451.2021.9659904.
Fuad, M. and Deb, D. "Using Real-World Problems to Explore and Improve Students' Understanding of Parallelism Concepts," 2021 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2021, pp. 57-62, doi: 10.1109/EDUCON46332.2021.9453912.
Deb, D. and Guirguis, M., "Use of Auxiliary Classifier Generative Adversarial Network in Touchstroke Authentication," 2020 19th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), 2020, pp. 252-257, doi: 10.1109/ICMLA51294.2020.00049.
Deb, D. and R. M. Smith, "Use of Machine Learning in Exploring Spatial (In)Justices¹," 2020 19th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA), 2020, pp. 1211-1217, doi: 10.1109/ICMLA51294.2020.00191.
Monroe et al., "Lightning Talks of EduHPC 2019," 2019 IEEE/ACM Workshop on Education for High-Performance Computing (EduHPC), 2019, pp. 25-31, doi: 10.1109/EduHPC49559.2019.00009.
Fuad, M., Akbar, M., Zubov, L. and Deb, D. "Out-of-class Activities: What Have We Been Doing and How We Can Change it for the Future,"2019 14th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 2019, pp. 714-719, doi: 10.1109/ICCSE.2019.8845513.
Aggarwal, et al., "EduPar Posters," in 2019 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2019 pp. 347-349.
Deb, D., Fuad, M., Irwin, K., “A Module-based Approach to Teaching Big data and Cloud Computing Topics at CS Undergraduate Level”, 50^th ACM SIGCSE Conference, March 2019, pp. 2-8.
Deb, D. S. Cousins and M. Fuad, "Teaching Big Data and Cloud Computing: A Modular Approach," 2018 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW), 2018, pp. 377-383, doi: 10.1109/IPDPSW.2018.00070.
Deb, D., Fuad, M., James, E. and Gloster, C., “MRS: Automated Assessment of Interactive Classroom Exercises”, 49^th ACM SIGCSE Conference, February 2018, pp. 290-295
Prasad, S., Weems, C., Dougherty, J., Deb, D., “NSF/IEEE-TCPP Curriculum Initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing –Status Report”, Special Session at 49th ACM SIGCSE conference, February 2018, pp. 134-135

Peer reviewed Poster Abstract (last 5 years)

Paul, J., and Deb, D.. 2023. "Minority Serving Institutions and SIGCSE". In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 (SIGCSE 2023). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1251. https://doi.org/10.1145/3545947.3573349
Deb, D., Jones, E., “University-wide Adoption of Data Science”, 51^th ACM SIGCSE Conference, February 2020.
Deb, D., Smith, R. M., and Fuad, M. “Infusing Data Science Across Disciplines”, In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), July 2019.
Deb, D., Fuad, M., Irwin, K., “An Alternative Approach to Teaching Big data and Cloud Computing Topics at CS Undergraduate Level”, Poster abstract at International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (Supercomputing’18), November 2018.

2022, 2023: Google's "TensorFlow Outreach Award"

2021: Wilveria B. Atkinson Distinguished Research Award, Winston-Salem State University

2021: Red Jacket Distinguished Award, Winston-Salem State University

2009: Awarded “Certificate of Merit” presented by the Trustees and President of IUP in recognition of faculty productivity in published scholarship.

2005: Honorary citizenship by the City of Bozeman, Montana, USA.

2004-2005: Benjamin Ph.D. fellowship, College of Engineering, Montana State University, USA.

2000-2001: AusAID Scholarship, Adelaide University, Australia.

1996: “Woman of the Year”, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), Bangladesh. This is a title given to the best female student of SUST based on academic and extracurricular achievements.

1993-1996: Shahjalal University Merit Scholarship.

1990-92: Bangladesh Government Merit Scholarship.

Graduate: CST 6320 Data Visualization*, CST 5320 Design and Analysis of Algorithms, CST 6302 Programming Languages, CSC 5322 Parallel Computing, CSC 5310 Big Data and Cloud Computing*.

Undergraduate: CSC 4350 Software Engineering, CSC 4322 Parallel Computing, CSC 4310 Big Data and Cloud Computing*, CSC 3331 Analysis of Algorithms, CSC 1315 Introductionnto Data Science*, CSC 2315 Applied Data Science*, CSC 2316 Responsible Data Science*, CSC 1305 Exploratory Data Analysis of Social Justice Issues*, CSC 1317 AI Literacy for All (launching Fall 2026)*

* Courses proposed, developed, and taught at WSSU.

Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE)
ACM Special Interest Group for Information Technology Education (SIGITE)
ACM Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIGHPC)
NSF/IEEE-TCPP Parallel and Distributed Curriculum Guideline Revision Committee.
IEEE Technical Committee on Parallel Processing (TCPP) Diversity Committee.
IEEE Computer Society T&C Adhoc Committee on Ethics,　Diversity　and Inclusion (EDI)