Current Members

Principal Investigator

  • Amarda Shehu [Curriculum Vitae]


    Professor of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computing
    Associate Dean for AI Innovation, College of Engineering and Computing
    Associate Vice President for Research for the Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA), The Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact (ORIEI)
    Courtesy Appointments in the Department of Bioengineering and
    School of Systems Biology
    Equity Champion
    email: amarda{AT}gmu.edu
    Bio:
    Dr. Amarda Shehu is a Professor of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University, where she is also An Associate Dean for AI Innovation for the College. At Mason Amarda also serves as an Associate Vice Provost for Research for the Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) and as a Co-Director of the Center of Excellence in Government Cybersecurity Risk Management and Resilience. She is also the inaugural Founding Co-Director of Mason’s Transdisciplinary Center for Advancing Human-Machine Partnerships (CAHMP).

    Since 2024, Amarda represents Mason as lead PI on the Mason-NIST Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) within the Department of Commerce in response to Biden's Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence.

    She maintains an active laboratory which advances foundational AI research to push the barriers of our understanding and address problems with societal resonance. Amarda obtained her Ph.D. from Rice University in 2008, where she was also an NIH Predoctoral Fellow in the Nanobiology Program. Amarda has published over 180 technical papers with postdoctoral, graduate, undergraduate, and high-school students. She is a 2022 Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and has received several awards, including the 2022 Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the 2021 Beck Family Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Research and Scholarship, the 2018 Mason University Teaching Excellence Award, the 2014 Mason Emerging Researcher/Scholar/Creator Award, the 2013 Mason OSCAR Undergraduate Mentor Excellence Award, and the 2012 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. Her research is regularly supported by various NSF programs, the Department of Defense, as well as state and private research awards.

    Amarda served as an NSF Program Director in the Information and Intelligent Systems Division of the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering during 2019-2022. At NSF, in addition to running CORE CISE programs, such as CAREER, CRI, MEDIUM, and SMALL, Shehu led the working group on the HDR: Data Science Corps program and represented and led CISE efforts in the COVID-19 RAPID Program and the Molecular Foundations in Biotechnology Program, for which she received two Director Recognition awards. She also represented CISE in the 2021-2022 inter-directory revision of the Molecular Foundations in Biotechnology Program.

Postdoctoral Fellows

    We are currently looking for a postdoctoral fellow.

Ph.D. Students

  • Manpriya Dua

    Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
    M.S. George Mason University (Fall 2016)
    B.Tech. Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Rajasthan Technical University, India (2014)

    email: mdua{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://mason.gmu.edu/~mdua
  • Toki Tahmid Tinan

    Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
    B.Sc. Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), Dhaka, Bangladesh (2019)

    email: tinan{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://mason.gmu.edu/~tinan
  • Anowarul Kabir

    Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
    B.Sc. University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (2019)

    email: akabir4{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://mason.gmu.edu/~akabir4
  • Samuel Blouir

    Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
    B.Sc. George Mason University, Fairfax, USA (2021)

    email: sblouir{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://mason.gmu.edu/~sblouir
  • Asher Moldwin

    Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science
    B.S. Computer Science and Physics, University of Maryland at College Park (2019)

    email: amoldwin{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://mason.gmu.edu/~amoldwin
  • Megan Herceg

    Ph.D. student in the School of Systems Biology, George Mason University
    B.Sc. Nutrition and Food Science: Dietetics. University of Maryland, College Park.
    email: mherceg{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://binf.gmu.edu/~mherceg/web/mypage.html
  • Yiyang Lian

    Ph.D. student in the School of Systems Biology, George Mason University
    M.S. Statistics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
    B.S. Biological Engineering, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, China
    email: ylian{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://binf.gmu.edu/~ylian/web/mypage.html

M.S. Students

  • Sree Ram GabbiReddy

    M.S. Computer Science, George Mason University (2022)
    B.Tech Computer Science, Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management, India (2020)

    email: sgabbire{AT}gmu.edu
    web: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sr33r4m/

Undergraduate Students

  • Alejandro Capeccho Perez

    Undergraduate researcher, Fall 2021 - present
    Junior, Statistics
    George Mason University

    email: acapecch@gmu.edu

High School Students