Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group

I have the distinction, or dis-honor, of having all of my active federal research grants terminated by the current administration. None of the grants were researching anything especially controversial, but they were all funded by programs that have been effectively shut down. To add insult to injury, the termination letters each stated that our research project no longer “effectuates” the goals of the funding program and, in one case, "no longer serves the interest of the United States," which feels a bit harsh. Further, we were given no advance notice -- the terminations were effective on the same day we received notice (one of which was at 4:30pm on a Friday). I apologize for the length of this post (I am a professor, after all), but I've broken things up into sections so you can skip around as desired.  Executive Summary: Academic research is essential for the advancement of technology and scientific/medical breakthroughs and is how we train the next generation of res...

I am delighted to receive the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Grant for $100,000 to support our collaborative proposal, “Adaptive Intrusion Detection in IoT Networks Using LLM-Driven Behavioral Analysis and Deep Reinforcement Learning” beginning in January 2025. This is a collaborative work with Dr. Neda Moghim and Virginia Tech.   Figure 1: Project Plan and Tasks This research project explores the integration of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), Large Language Models (LLMs), neuro-symbolic AI, and wireless networking to create adaptive intrusion detection systems for Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The central research question focuses on developing resilient IoT systems capable of recovering swiftly from cyberattacks without degrading the user experience. To address this, the project introduces several key innovations. First, an adaptive prompt-generation system is proposed using DRL to optimize LLM queries in real-time by tracking the evolving nature of cy...

I'm thrilled to share an exciting news—my very first NSF proposal has been funded!  This award is a NSF Smart and Connected Communities Planning Grant for one year and worth $150,000 titled Advancing Health Equity: Integrating LLM Technology into Homeless Telehealth Services for Chronic Disease Education . This project is a collaboration between Dr. Tina Gustin and me . As communities across the United States and around the world undergo significant transformations, the integration of rapidly evolving intelligent technologies is reshaping how residents interact with their environments. This era of transformation holds immense potential to enhance well-being and prosperity, yet it also presents complex challenges at the intersection of technology and society. Recognizing these opportunities and challenges, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has launched the Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC) program to lay the groundwork for smart communities that drive economic gro...

  Figure 1: The schematic overview of the project, including main components (lower) and stakeholders (upper).  In collaboration with Dr. Sawood Alam at the  Internet Archive , Dr. Edward Fox at Virginia Tech, and Bill Ingram at Virginia Tech Libraries, I am so grateful to receive an award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) this year. The title of my grant is  Preserving Open Access Datasets and Software for Sustained Computational Reproducibility . The total amount is about $564k. The official webpage of this award is https://www.imls.gov/grants/awarded/lg-256694-ols-24 .  Recently, concerns of reproducibility have been raised in multiple academic disciplines such as the Social and Behavioral Sciences , Biomedical and Life Sciences , and Computer and Information Sciences . Datasets and software packages are crucial resources to many research domains requiring data analysis. Collberg and Proebsting found that a large ...

  Members of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative and invited guests gathered at the second annual CCI Symposium April 17 to 18, 2023, in Richmond, VA. Dr. Luiz DaSilva , executive director of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, presented the State of CCI speech at the 2022 CCI Symposium. In his speech, Dr. Silva mentioned the selected proposals for the “Securing Interactions between Humans and Machines” call this year. In a later workshop, funded projects from Virginia universities presented a short briefing on their projects . As the PI of one of the projects, I presented our research work on counter human smuggling. This is a collaborative work between  Dr. Faryaneh Poursardar ,  Dr. Vikas Ashok   from ODU CS, and  Dr. Erika Frydenlund   from  VMASC . Intentional misinformation and/or disinformation can play a large part in humanitarian crises involving human smuggling and trafficking. Human smugglers (also known as coyotes on the U.S. southern border)...

We are delighted to receive funding to work on a research project to develop new ways to counter human smuggling by identifying deceptive posts on social media sites. This is a joint work collaboration between Dr. Faryaneh Poursardar , Dr. Vikas Ashok from ODU CS, and  Dr. Erika Frydenlund from  VMASC   and will support one graduate student for one year Faryaneh Poursardar, Vikas Ashok, and Erika Frydenlund, From Gap to Gain: Counter Human Smuggling by Identifying Deceptive Advertisements in Social Media, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) - Securing Interaction between Humans and Machines, 12/2022 – 12/2023, $60,000 Human smuggling across borders is one of the major global concerns affecting many countries across the world, including the United States. Research shows that smugglers are heavily relying on social media to solicit migrants attempting to cross into the US through deceptive advertisements promising safe and guaranteed means of crossing the border. Deceptiv...

  Figure: DJI Tello Programmable Drone We are very excited to receive Faculty Innovator Grant 2022  funded by the Center for Learning and Teaching (CLT) at Old Dominion University. The goal of this grant is to help faculty to explore innovative uses of technology to improve student learning. This is in collaboration with Dr. Faryaneh Poursardar (PI) and Dr. Sampath Jayarathna (Co-PI) at the Department of Computer Science.  Lack of experience in Computer Science students connecting programming skills with real-world problems led us to develop "Drone Programming Studio" control and manipulation of drones with various programming languages in CS programming course projects. One main issue that has been identified in academic institutions is that students do not have a chance to apply hands-on knowledge that combines their coding skills with real-world problems until their senior year. Drone programming projects proposed in this project will be a valuable experience...

We are excited to receive 2022 National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering Minority-Serving Institutions (CISE-MSI) Research Expansion Program award worth $400,000 for two years for collaborative research towards " Understanding Human Emotions Associated with Attention Activities in Temporal Domain Utilizing Multimodal Data .”  The goal of the CISE-MSI program is to broaden participation by increasing the number of CISE-funded research projects from MSIs and to develop research capacity toward successful submissions to core CISE programs. MSIs are central to inclusive excellence: they foster innovation, cultivate current and future undergraduate and graduate computer and information science and engineering talent, and bolster long-term U.S. competitiveness. MSI designated schools in this program are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and Tribal College & Universities (TCUs)....