Virginia Tech Professor Naren Ramakrishnan Elected to VASEM for AI Research

Ramakrishnan, a University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and director of the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, was one of seven Virginia Tech faculty members inducted into the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (VASEM) this year. The academy recognizes sustained contributions to research, innovation, education, and service to Virginia, and its members provide independent expertise on state issues.

His research integrates artificial intelligence, data science, forecasting, computational epidemiology, and urban analytics to model complex systems and anticipate emerging events. A recurring focus has been using data to understand human behavior, public health, and societal change at population scale, contributing both to methods and to understanding ethical and societal implications.

Ramakrishnan developed EMBERS, a 24/7 forecasting system sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity that uses open-source data to predict disease outbreaks, civil unrest, and election outcomes. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

He leads AI and machine learning efforts for the Institute for Advanced Computing and has helped establish interdisciplinary programs linking data science to public health and urban systems. He also co-led Virginia Tech's 2025 Virginia AI Summit, organized by VASEM, and in Northern Virginia created the National Science Foundation-funded urban computing graduate certificate program.

With the new inductees, including Luiz DaSilva, Stefan Duma, Carla Finkielstein, Lee Learman, Robin McCarley, and John Rossmeisl, Virginia Tech's VASEM membership now totals 32.