UT Dallas Professor Dr. Latifur Khan and his Research Team Receive Best Paper Award for Pioneering Political Text Analysis
Dr. Latifur Khan, a computer science (CS) professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas, along with his research team of UT Dallas CS graduate students (Naif Alatrush, Luay Abdeljaber, Sultan Alsarra and Parker Whitehead) and political scientists from UT Dallas (Dr. Patrick Brandt), the University of Arizona, and West Virginia University received the Best Paper Award for their research — “Extractive Question Answering for Spanish and Arabic Political Text” — at the 17th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS), held at Carnegie Mellon University in Sept. 2024.
This award showcases their innovative contributions at the intersection of social computing, cultural modeling, and predictive analytics, marking a substantial advancement in understanding political discourse across different languages. The team’s success underscores the global relevance of its work and its impact on the evolving fields of AI and language processing.
The SBP-BRiMS Conference is a leading international event renowned for its innovative advancements in social computing, behavioral modeling, and simulation. It acts as a vibrant hotspot where fields such as computational social science, machine learning, and predictive analytics converge, drawing elite researchers and professionals from around the world.
Each year, SBP-BRiMS serves as a platform for thought leaders across academia, industry and government to showcase work pushing the boundaries of understanding with respect to social influence, behavioral representation and cultural dynamics. The conference’s international scope ensures it is more than just a forum for theoretical discussions; it showcases pioneering solutions addressing urgent real-world challenges, including public health emergencies, political disputes, and cybersecurity risks.
Dr. Khan’s groundbreaking research in areas such as artificial intelligence and natural language processing, particularly for low-resource languages, earned him this Best Paper Award. This accolade serves not only as recognition but also highlights the increasing value of interdisciplinary methods in unraveling human behavior, conflict, and culture using advanced computational models. His award-winning paper examines advancements in language models—similar to those utilized in ChatGPT—specifically designed for languages with limited resources, such as Spanish and Arabic. The paper underscores a process referred to as “question answering,” in which the system generates responses to particular inquiries based on the information supplied.
The researchers created two customized language models: one for Arabic and another for Spanish, specifically designed to understand and address questions related to political violence and conflict. These specialized models excel beyond general-purpose models in these languages. The paper also investigates innovative techniques and distinctive datasets that can improve the use of these technologies in regions where Arabic and Spanish are spoken, capturing the audience’s attention and making natural language processing tools more accessible to users in these areas.
Dr. Latifur Khan is a prominent CS professor at UT Dallas, where he has been teaching since 2000. Globally renowned for his impactful research in big data analytics, stream data mining, trustworthy AI and cybersecurity, Dr. Khan has created cutting-edge algorithms and frameworks for real-time stream data analytics and political event coding from unstructured political news articles. His work in machine learning (ML) and generative AI has greatly influenced fields such as intrusion detection, transportation network and malware vulnerability.
Dr. Khan has received multiple prestigious accolades, such as the IEEE Big Data Security Senior Research Award. He is also recognized as an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. Having published over 300+ papers and authored three books, Dr. Khan has delivered keynote speeches at major international conferences, solidifying his influence in data science.