Computer scientist Shrivastava wins Air Force Young Investigator grant

Anshumali Shrivastava, assistant professor of computer science, is one of 45 scientists and engineers in the U.S. to share nearly $20 million in grants from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Young Investigator Research Program.

The program is open to researchers in the U.S. who have received a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in the last five years and demonstrate “exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research.”

“It is important to note that this is Anshu’s second award in the Young Investigator category, after he won the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2017 as well,” said Luay Nakhleh, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science. “This is amazing!”

Shrivastava’s proposal was titled “Sub-Linear Algorithms for Learning and Sensing with Multiple Disparate and Ultra-High-Dimensional Dataset.”

“This project will enhance our current capabilities to process high volumes of heterogeneous data generated from high-resolution sensors,” Shrivastava said.

He came to Rice in 2015, the same year he earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research focuses on large-scale machine learning, randomized algorithms for big data and graph mining.

He earned an integrated M.S. and B.S. in mathematics and computing in 2008 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, where he was a silver medalist.

–Patrick Kurp is a science writer in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.