Asif Ekbal

Asif Ekbal serves as Professor at the School of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, holding a position on lien from IIT Patna where he previously held Associate Professor (2017-2024) and Assistant Professor (2011-2017) positions. With over two decades of research experience, he has authored approximately 300 publications in premier AI/NLP venues including ACL, EMNLP, and IEEE Transactions.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata (2009)
• Master of Computer Science and Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata

Research Focus: His work centers on Natural Language Processing with specialized expertise in low-resource language machine translation, sentiment analysis, hate speech detection, and empathetic AI systems. Current research integrates affective computing and multitask learning to address critical challenges in misinformation detection and cross-lingual communication, particularly for Indian languages.

Scientific Recognition:

• INAE Best Innovative Project Award (Government of India)
• JSPS Invitation Fellowship (Government of Japan)
• Visvesvaraya Young Faculty Research Fellowship
• Stanford University Top 2% Scientist (2022-2024)
• Openrsearch.com Top Computer Scientists listing

Research Leadership: Professor Ekbal directs multiple sponsored projects funded by industry leaders (Accenture, Flipkart, Wipro, Elsevier, Samsung, LG Soft) and government agencies (MeitY, MHRD, SERB). He actively mentors doctoral researchers through the ACM Anveshan Setu Fellowship and serves on editorial boards for Neural Networks (Elsevier), ACM TALLIP, and Computer Speech and Language. His professional service includes Secretary of the NLP Association of India and membership on the Government of India's AI Standardization Committee.