KC (Casey) Santosh

Prof. KC (Casey) Santosh is a leading AI researcher at the University of South Dakota (USD), where he chairs the Department of Computer Science and directs the Applied AI Research Lab. He has held prestigious roles, including a research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a postdoctoral position at LORIA Research Center (France) with ITESOFT. His work spans interdisciplinary AI applications in healthcare, biomedical engineering, and sustainability, supported by over $8 million in grants from DOD, NSF, ED, and SDBOR. Santosh has authored 10 books and 250+ peer-reviewed articles in top journals like IEEE TPAMI, IEEE TMI, and IEEE TAI.

• Visionary Leadership Award (2023)
• Cutler Award for Teaching and Research Excellence (2021)
• President's Research Excellence Award (2019)
• Ignite Award (2014)

He actively contributes to academic leadership, founding USD's AI programs and establishing collaborations with Biology, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, Sustainability, and Business Analytics departments. Santosh also serves on the NIST AI Safety Institute Consortium (since Spring 2024) and the U.S. Speaker Program (since December 2024), delivering talks on AI and AI education.