Aparna Bharati

Aparna Bharati serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Lehigh University's P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. She leads the Computer Vision Research Group and maintains critical affiliations with the AIRLab, I-DISC, and NHI Initiatives, driving interdisciplinary collaboration in artificial intelligence and data science.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Notre Dame (2020)
• B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, India (2015)

Research Focus: Dr. Bharati pioneers work at the intersection of Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Media Forensics, with deep specialization in Biometrics and Pattern Recognition. Her research develops advanced algorithms for detecting image manipulation, establishing media provenance, and mitigating security vulnerabilities in AI-generated content, directly addressing critical challenges in digital trust and authentication systems.

Publication Trends: Analysis of her 15 most recent publications (2023-2025) reveals an intense focus on generative AI threats and defenses. Key trajectories include negation understanding in multimodal foundation models, identity-based provenance tracking for synthetic media, and perturbation-resistant image protection mechanisms. Her work consistently targets emerging vulnerabilities in deepfakes, style transfer, and neural compression while advancing forensic methodologies for next-generation image analysis.

Leadership & Grants: Dr. Bharati directs the Computer Vision Research Group while mentoring graduate students in cutting-edge media forensics projects. Her research has been supported by high-impact initiatives including the DARPA MediFor program during her doctoral work at Notre Dame. She actively shapes the field through leadership roles on the IEEE Biometric Council Editorial Board and PAMI-TC Executive Committee.

Research Ecosystem: Within Lehigh's collaborative infrastructure, she leverages AIRLab for AI innovation, I-DISC for data-intensive computing resources, and NHI for health informatics applications. This tripartite affiliation enables her to bridge theoretical computer vision with real-world security and healthcare implementations through cross-departmental team science.