Big Data
Data Analysis
Artificial Intelligence Researcher
Human-Centered Design Expert
Dept of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Dr. Nirmalya Thakur is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. His research interests include Big Data, Data Analysis, Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing. He has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in these fields. He completed his PhD at the University of Cincinnati, where he received numerous accolades including the Dean's Fellowship, the Distinguished Thesis Award, the Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship, the Risk Management Awareness Award, and the Engineer of the Month Award.
Dr. Thakur has advised and mentored several students who have co-authored papers in different international conferences and professional journals such as the Journal of Future Internet (Impact Factor 2.8), Journal of Computers (Impact Factor 2.6), Journal of Data (Impact Factor 2.2), and Journal of Computation (Impact Factor 1.9). Some of the recent conferences where his students co-authored papers include the 26th HCI International Conference (HCII 2024) in Washington, United States, the 12th International Conference on Human Interaction and Emerging Technologies (IHIET 2024) in Venice, Italy, the 25th HCI International Conference (HCII 2023) in Copenhagen, Denmark, the 5th International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE 2022) in Guilin, China, and the 7th International Conference on Human Interaction & Emerging Technologies: Artificial Intelligence & Future Applications (IHIET-AI 2022) in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2022, two students from his research group received Research Fellowships to support their research projects. To learn more about these success stories from his research group, please visit: https://www.ddihts.com/
Dr. Thakur has received several awards, honors, and recognitions both at a national and international level for his contributions to the field of Computer Science. He has been featured on the cover page of Millennium Magazine and interviewed by IEEE TV for his contributions to the field of Computer Science. The groundbreaking findings of his research papers have been featured by Yahoo News, Business Insider, and multiple other news outlets. He received the Young Scientist of the Year Award at the 2nd International Business and Academic Excellence Awards, the Excellent Researcher of the Year Award at the 2nd International Academic and Research Excellence Awards, the Young Innovator Award at the 2nd Universal Innovators Leadership Awards, and the Best Presenter Award at the 5th International Conference on Data Science, and Information Technology. He was featured in the American Scientist Magazine after receiving a Grant in Aid of Research from the National Academy of Sciences and he has received certificates of appreciation from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the European Alliance for Innovation (EAI) for his outstanding contributions as a reviewer for their conferences. His biography was also featured by Marquis Who’s Who in 2020 and in 2019 for his contributions to the field of Computer Science.
He has also published 2 co-edited books titled - Human-Computer Interaction and Beyond: Advances Towards Smart and Interconnected Environments (Part I and Part II). In addition to presenting the latest research and development in the field of Human-Computer Computer, the books celebrate the diversity in computing in this field as the chapters (both parts combined) are co-authored by experts in this field from 15 countries: Albania, Chile, China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Spain, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Dr. Thakur has received funding in the form of multiple fellowships and grants.
He is highly active in the scientific community in different roles. He serves as an editorial board member of the journals - Human Factors in Healthcare (Elsevier), Journal of Technology and Disability, (IOS Press), Journal of Technology and Healthcare, (IOS Press), and International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining (Inderscience Publishers). He has served as a Scientific Advisory Board Co-Chair for 3 conferences. He has served as a Technical Committee Member for 28 international conferences that took place in the last 4 years in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Denmark, and Japan. He has also reviewed papers for several journals including - IEEE Access, IEEE Systems Journal, Journal of Internet of Things (Elsevier), Journal of Building Engineering (Elsevier), Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies, and Journal of Future Robot Life (IOS Press). In addition to the above, he serves as a Full Member of SigmaXi (nominated), member of IEEE, member of ACM, member of IEEE Sensors Council, and member of IEEE Systems Council.
Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering
University of Cincinnati, USA
Specialization: Human-Computer Interaction
Thesis: A Human-Centered Activity Aware Framework for Adaptive Ambient Assisted Living
Advisor: Dr. Chia Y. Han
M.S. in Computer Science
University of Cincinnati, USA
Specialization: Human-Computer Interaction
Thesis: Framework for a Context Aware Adaptive Intelligent Assistant for Activities of Daily Living
Advisor: Dr. Chia Y. Han
B.Tech in Electrical Engineering
KIIT University, India
Professional Certifications
Oracle Certified Java Professional
Oracle Certified SQL Developer
Oracle Certified PL-SQL Developer
Dr. Thakur's research at the intersections of Big Data, Data Analysis, Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing has focused on addressing the needs of the constantly increasing aging population of the world through the development of personalized, intelligent, assistive, adaptive, and pervasive technologies to contribute towards healthy aging, independent living, and improved quality of life of the elderly in the future of Smart Homes. His research has led to the development of various novel technologies related to human activity recognition, user-specific activity recommendation, affect recognition during human behavior, indoor location detection, fall detection, detection of indoor navigational hazards, and detection of cognitive impairment from user interactions.
In addition to the above, he has also worked on mining, analyzing, and interpreting multimodal components of conversations on social media platforms and trends of web behavior related to virus outbreaks such as COVID-19 and MPox. His recent works in these areas have focused on performing gender-specific sentiment analysis, subjectivity analysis, and toxicity analysis of Tweets about online learning during COVID-19, the identification of sentiments and evolution of the same in Tweets where individuals self-reported Long COVID, the investigation of the trends in Google Searches about Disease X on a global scale, and the identification and analysis of distinct themes and topics of conversations on Twitter in the context of MPox
Dr. Thakur has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in these fields.
(Impact factor from the Journal Citation Reports: https://jcr.clarivate.com/jcr/)