Prof. KC Santosh – a highly accomplished AI expert – is the Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of South Dakota (USD), where he also serves as the Founding Director of the Applied AI Research Lab. His extensive background includes serving as a research fellow at NIH and a postdoctoral research scientist (ITESOFT co.) at LORIA Research Center, France. At USD, he oversees five degree-granting programs (BA/BS-CS, MS-CS/AI, PhD-DSE) manages 13 faculty members and two staff, and supports approximately 500 students with an annual budget of around $2 million. He has recruited 90% of the department’s team and led efforts to secure ABET accreditation, ensuring academic excellence. Under his leadership (founder), USD’s AI programs have seen a 3,000% growth in enrollment, along with the development of interdisciplinary collaborations across the campus like BME, Biology, Sustainability, Health Science, Physics, and Business Analytics, establishing USD as a leader in AI education.

With over $8 million in funding from sources such as the DOD, NSF, ED, and SDBOR, 10 published books, and more than 250 peer-reviewed research articles (including in IEEE TPAMI), he contributes as an associate editor for prestigious journals like IEEE Transactions on AI and the International Journal of Machine Learning & Cybernetics, and actively serves as a program chair for reputed conferences such as the IEEE Conference on AI, CogMI, and CBMS. Since Spring 2024, he has joined the NIST’s AI Safety Institute Consortium, representing South Dakota.

To name a few, Prof. Santosh is the proud recipient of the Visionary Leadership Award (University of Derby - UK, 2023), the Cutler Award for Teaching and Research Excellence (USD, 2021), the President's Research Excellence Award (USD, 2019), and the Ignite Award from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS, 2014).