Author Archive

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

Veerasamy, from the Department of Computer Science, started a career in industry, but he soon decided to return to the classroom thanks to one important mentor — his father. “My father was a teacher in India,” Veerasamy said. “I grew up around his work, so I always respected the profession. I still think of myself primarily as a teacher.”

Rigorous coursework is often just the first step for students who are preparing for careers as engineers and computer scientists. Undergraduates may not have leadership roles on their radar before they have completed their first internships but through the process of mentorship, many students discover that they need coaching beyond their academic courses.