News
Our paper, "Impact of Different Data Augmentation Techniques for Glaucoma Detection Using a SWIN Transformer",
conducted by high school student Arvin Bozorgi, has been accepted to the
IEEE ICDM 2026 Teen Research Track. Congratulations to Arvin on this exciting achievement!
My application for an Undergraduate Research Assistantship (URA) Award from Appalachian State University's Office of Student Research has been approved for Fall 2026. Working with undergraduate researcher Lucas Roney, this project will develop an AI/ML framework to improve local streamflow forecasts from NOAA's National Water Model (NWM) by combining NWM output with USGS stream-gage observations, ERA5 meteorological data, and watershed characteristics. Total Stipend: $1,200.00 | Duration: 8 weeks.
I wrote a short mini-blog with some of my notes and reflections from PGM 2026, including thoughts from the conference and our work: PGM 2026: Conference Diary (Valencia, Spain).
My new paper entitled 'Graph-Coupled Causal Bayesian Optimization' has been accepted at IEEE ICDM 2026. This year, ICDM received a total of 1,966 submissions across its Research and Applied tracks and accepted 392 papers, resulting in an acceptance rate of 19.94%.
Our scientific workshop, "Best Practices for AI and Agentic Workflows in Earth Science Research," has been accepted for the AGU 2026 Annual Meeting. The workshop will explore practical strategies for using artificial intelligence and agentic workflows effectively and responsibly in Earth science research. The workshop will be co-presented with Mitchel Carson from the University of Texas at Austin.
Our paper, "Differentiable Structural EM for Explicit-Latent Linear-Gaussian DAGs," has been accepted for an oral presentation (39.06%) at the 13th International Conference on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGM 2026). Dr. Mitch Parry is my co-author on this work.
My paper, "Causally-Aware Information Bottleneck for Domain Adaptation" has been accepted for publication in Transactions on Machine Learning Researchs (TMLR) 2026.
My application Calibrating Streamside Video with In-Stream Measurements to Provide Reliable Real-Time Flow Monitoring has been selected as an awardee for FY27 CONCERT Research Grant. I have been awarded $5,000 for the project. The project is intentionally collaborative. Dr. Anderson will lead hydrologic measurement training and supervise an undergraduate student. Dr Martin will lead geomorphic and site-context interpretation and supervise a graduate student.
I have been selected to participate in the 2026 NSF CISE Aspiring PI Workshop: Clemson/Greenville, SC. This workshop will be held August 6 - 7, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Greenville hotel.
My application Robust River Monitoring at Scale: Low-Cost AI Systems with Failure-Aware Fusion and Safe Alerts has been selected as an awardee, a fellowship stipend of $5000, for Cloud Analytics Faculty Fellows Program at Appalachian State University (CAFF).
I was awarded a $5000 2026 CAS Summer Grant Award to work on scholarly research, creative projects and/or external funding proposals. The purpose of these grants is to allow untenured, tenure-track faculty to focus on scholarship over the summer.
I will serve as a Research Theme Leader for the 2026 Water Prediction Innovators Summer Institute. The 2026 Summer Institute will be held from June 8 - July 22, 2026, at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL. For more information, check the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. website (CUAHSI).
Our new paper entitled 'Extending multi-source Bayesian optimization with causality principles' has been accepted as an extended abstract at the 25th international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (AAMAS 2026). The first author is Luuk Jacobs who successfully defended and passed his thesis on Multi-source Causal Bayesian Optimization, recently. Congradulations Luuk!
My new paper entitled 'Causal domain adaptation: An information bottleneck approach' has been accepted as an extended abstract at the 25th international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (AAMAS 2026).
Congratulations to Mitchel Carson on His Thesis Defense. Today (Dec 9, 2025), Mitchel Carson successfully defended his thesis on Streamflow Predictions Using Advanced Neural Networks. Thank you to Dr. Anderson for the great insights and questions that strengthened the discussion. We're excited to finalize a manuscript based on this work and aim to publish the outcomes soon.
Congratulations to Luuk Jacobs on His Thesis Defense. On November 18, 2025, Luuk Jacobs successfully defended and passed his thesis on Multi-source Causal Bayesian Optimization. We warmly congratulate Luuk on this important achievement, thank him for his contributions to our group, and wish him all the best for his future career and life.
Congratulations, Jake Jenkins!
A huge congratulations to my graduate student Jake Jenkins for being named a finalist in AppState's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.
This is an outstanding achievement, placing him among the top nine competitors university-wide. Congratulations, Jake-keep up the excellent work!
I wrote a short mini-blog with my notes and reflections on the conference, from Jure Leskovec's keynote on relational foundation models to my own paper and poster on EM-based transfer learning for Gaussian causal models under covariate and target shift, plus thoughts on teaching fundamentals in the LLM era. Read it here: (https://majavid.github.io/icdm2025-conference-notes).
I will serve as a ICDM 2025 Session Chair for Undergraduate and High School Symposium on Saturday, November 15, 2025 (Washington DC, USA).
My paper entitled 'Voting Methods to Prevent Social Disappointment in Elections' has now been published on Springer Nature Link as a chapter of the book "PROMISE - PROMoting AI's Safe usage for Elections." DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-89853-2_16
My new paper entitled 'EM-Based Transfer Learning for Gaussian Causal Models Under Covariate and Target Shift' has been accepted as a regular paper at IEEE ICDM 2025. This year, ICDM received 785 submissions, of which only 106 were accepted as regular papers, resulting in a highly selective full paper acceptance rate of 13.5 %.
Jake Jenkins: successfully defended his honors thesis in Computer Science at Appalachian State University (May 2025).
Project: Using Ensemble Learning for Glaucoma Classification. (Summer 2024 - Spring 2025)
Vidhi Patel: Completed her Master of Computer Science at Appalachian State University (August 2024).
Project: Justified Referral in AI Glaucoma Screening. (Summer 2024)
Jeremy Roberts: Completed his Master of Computer Science at Appalachian State University (December 2023).
Project: Causal Bayesian Optimization (CausalBO Python library). The results of Jeremy's project was published and presented at IEEE SoutheastCon 2024.
