ScarlettFlannaga at 11:45, 23 February 2026

2026-02-23T11:45:01Z

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{{Short description|Indian-American computer scientist, and artificial intelligence}}
{{Resume-like|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Vasant Honavar
| image =
| image_caption =
| field = [[Computer science]], [[Artificial intelligence]], [[Machine learning]], [[Data Science]], [[Bioinformatics]], [[Big data]], [[Causal Inference]], [[Informatics]], [[Knowledge Representation]], [[Computational biology]], [[Cognitive science]], [[Health informatics]], [[Neuroinformatics]], [[Network Science]], [[Biomedical Informatics]]
| work_institutions = [[Iowa State University]]<br/>[[National Science Foundation]]<br/>[[Pennsylvania State University]]
| alma_mater = [[B.M.S. Institute of Technology and Management]], [[University of Wisconsin]]<br/>[[Drexel University]]<br/> [[B.M.S. College of Engineering]]
| doctoral_advisor = [[Leonard Uhr]]
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| awards = [[AAAS Fellow]]
| footnotes =
| signature =
}}
'''Vasant G. Honavar''' is an Indian-American [[computer scientist]], and [[artificial intelligence]], [[machine learning]], [[big data]], [[data science]], [[causal inference]], [[knowledge representation]], [[bioinformatics]] and [[health informatics]] [[researcher]] and [[professor]].

==Early life and education==

Vasant Honavar was born at [[Pune]], [[India]] to Bhavani G. and Gajanan N. Honavar. He received his early education at the Vidya Vardhaka Sangha High School and M.E.S. College in [[Bangalore]], [[India]]. He received a B.E. in Electronics & Communications Engineering from the [[B.M.S. College of Engineering]] in [[Bangalore]], [[India]] in 1982,<ref>{{cite web|title=BMSCE Alumni Achievers|url=https://alumni.bmsce.in/newsroom/news/Alumni-Achiever-Dr-Vasant-Honavar-Dec-2016.dz|access-date=7 August 2022}}{{Dead link|date=October 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref> when it was affiliated with [[Bangalore University]], an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering in 1984 from [[Drexel University]], and an M.S. in computer science in 1989, and a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in 1990, respectively, from the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]], where he studied Artificial Intelligence and worked with [[Leonard Uhr]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Mathematics Genealogy Project|url=https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=82483|access-date=1 August 2022}}</ref>

==Career==

Honavar is on the faculty of Informatics and Intelligent Systems Department in the [[Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://faculty.ist.psu.edu/vhonavar/|title=Vasant Honavar|website=faculty.ist.psu.edu}}</ref> at [[Pennsylvania State University]] where he currently holds the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence<ref name="auto">{{cite web|title=Vasant Honavar named Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and AI |url=https://news.psu.edu/story/671603/2021/10/04/academics/vasant-honavar-named-huck-chair-biomedical-data-sciences-and-ai|access-date=20 October 2021}}</ref> and previously held the Edward Frymoyer Endowed Chair in Information Sciences and Technology. He serves on the faculties of the graduate programs in [[Computer Science]], [[Informatics]], [[Bioinformatics]] and [[Genomics]], [[Neuroscience]], [[Operations Research]], [[Public Health Sciences]], and of undergraduate programs in [[Data Science]] and [[Artificial Intelligence]] methods and applications. Honavar serves as the director of the [[Artificial Intelligence]] Research Laboratory,<ref>{{cite web|title=Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory|url=https://ailab.ist.psu.edu|access-date=29 May 2015}}</ref> Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences<ref>{{cite web|title=Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences |url=https://ics.psu.edu|access-date=29 May 2015}}</ref> and the director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Scientific Applications<ref>{{cite web|title=Penn State center to advance AI tools to accelerate scientific progress|url=https://news.psu.edu/story/656064/2021/04/23/research/penn-state-center-advance-ai-tools-accelerate-scientific-progress|access-date=12 July 2021}}</ref> at [[Pennsylvania State University]]. Honavar served on the Leadership Team of the Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub.<ref>{{cite web|title=Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub|url=https://nebigdatahub.org/|access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref> Honavar served on the [[Computing Research Association]]'s [[Computing Community Consortium]] Council during 2014-2017,<ref>{{cite web|title=Computing Community Consortium Members|url=http://www.cra.org/ccc/about/ccc-council-members|access-date=29 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=CCC Announces new members|url=http://www.cccblog.org/2014/06/11/|access-date=31 May 2015}}</ref> where he chaired the task force on Convergence of Data and Computing, and was a member of the task force on Artificial Intelligence.

Honavar was the first Sudha Murty Distinguished Visiting Chair of Neurocomputing and Data Science by the [[Indian Institute of Science]], Bangalore, India.<ref>{{cite web|title='Sudha Murty' chair launched at IISc|date=13 October 2016|url=https://www.deccanherald.com/content/575475/sudha-murty-chair-launched-iisc.html|access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref> Honavar was named a Distinguished Member of the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] for "outstanding scientific contributions to computing";<ref>{{cite web|title=2018 ACM Distinguished Members Recognized for Contributions that Have Revolutionized How We Live, Work and Play|url=https://www.acm.org/media-center/2018/november/distinguished-members-2018|access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref> and elected a Fellow of the [[American Association for the Advancement of Science]] for his "distinguished research contributions and leadership in data science".<ref>{{cite web|title=AAAS Honors Accomplished Scientists as 2018 Elected Fellows|url=https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-honors-accomplished-scientists-2018-elected-fellows|access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref>

As a [[Program Director]] in the Information Integration and [[Informatics (academic field)|Informatics]] program in the Information and Intelligent Systems Division of the [[Computer]] and [[Information Science]] and [[Engineering]] Directorate of the US [[National Science Foundation]] during 2010-13, Honavar led the [[Big Data]] Program.<ref>{{cite web|title=NSF 12-499 Core Techniques and Technologies for Big Data|url=https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12499/nsf12499.htm|access-date=29 May 2015}}</ref>

Honavar was a [[professor]] of [[computer science]] at [[Iowa State University]] where he led the [[Artificial Intelligence]] Research Laboratory which he founded in 1990 and was instrumental in establishing an interdepartmental graduate program in [[Bioinformatics]] and [[Computational Biology]] (and served as its Chair during 2003–2005).<ref>{{cite web|title=From Data Analytics to Computational Discovery and Discovery Informatics |url=https://intheloop.engineering.asu.edu/2013/10/23/from-data-analytics-to-computational-discovery-and-discovery-informatics-nov-6/|access-date=29 May 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=BCB Program Administrative Committees 2003-2004 |url=http://www.bcb.iastate.edu/faculty/BCBadminCommittees.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040622204655/http://www.bcb.iastate.edu/faculty/BCBadminCommittees.html |archive-date=2004-06-22 |access-date=12 July 2022}}</ref>

Honavar has held visiting professorships at [[Carnegie Mellon University]], the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]], and at the [[Indian Institute of Science]].<ref name="deccanherald.com">{{cite web|title=Sudha Murty' chair launched at IISc|date=13 October 2016|url=http://www.deccanherald.com/content/575475/sudha-murty-chair-launched-iisc.html|access-date=October 14, 2016}}</ref>

==Research==
Honavar's research has contributed to advances in [[artificial intelligence]], [[machine learning]], [[causal inference]], [[knowledge representation]], [[Artificial neural network|neural networks]], [[semantic web]], [[big data]] analytics, and [[bioinformatics]] and [[computational biology]]. He was a program chair of the [[Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]](AAAI)'s 36th Conference on Artificial Intelligence.<ref>{{cite web|title=AAAI 2022: AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence|url=https://aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI-22/|access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref> He has published over 300 research articles, including many highly cited ones,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5399-3489|title=ORCID|website=orcid.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Vasant Honavar's Google Scholar Page|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pD_y458AAAAJ|access-date=13 July 2021}}</ref> as well as several books on these topics.<ref>{{cite web|title=Library of Congress Catalog Search|url=http://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=Vasant+Honavar&searchCode=GKEY%5E*&searchType=1&limitTo=none&fromYear=&toYear=&limitTo=LOCA%3Dall&limitTo=PLAC%3Dall&limitTo=TYPE%3Dall&limitTo=LANG%3Dall&recCount=25|access-date=29 May 2015}}</ref> His recent work has focused on federated machine learning algorithms for constructing predictive models from distributed data and [[Linked data|linked open data]], learning predictive models from high dimensional longitudinal data, reasoning with federated knowledge bases, detecting algorithmic bias, [[big data]] analytics, analysis and prediction of protein-protein, protein-RNA, and protein-DNA interfaces and interactions, social network analytics, [[health informatics]], secrecy-preserving query answering, representing and reasoning about preferences, and [[causal inference]] from complex, e.g., relational, data, [[large language models]], [[diffusion models]], and [[meta analysis]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Selected Publications of Vasant Honavar|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pD_y458AAAAJ&hl=en}}</ref>

Honavar has been active in fostering national and international scientific collaborations in Artificial Intelligence, Data Sciences, and their applications in addressing national, international, and societal priorities in accelerating science, improving health, transforming agriculture through partnerships that bring together academia, non-profits, and industry.<ref>{{cite web|title=Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub|url=http://nebigdatahub.org|access-date=20 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ernrp.org|title=Eastern Regional Network|access-date=20 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Workshop on Brain, Computation, and Learning|url=https://events.csa.iisc.ac.in/bcl2018/|access-date=20 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Global Innovation Forum: Transforming Intelligence|url=https://fast.foundation/gif19/|access-date=20 October 2019|archive-date=30 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201130105916/https://fast.foundation/gif19/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=US-Serbia and West Balkan Data Science Workshop|date=12 August 2018|url=https://www.intersection.rs/activities/2018/08/us-serbia-and-west-balkan-data-science-workshop/|access-date=20 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=International Summer School on Deep Learning|url=https://irdta.eu/deeplearn2019/|access-date=20 October 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=AI-Enabled Materials Discovery, Design, and Synthesis (AIMS) Institute|url=https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/500000-grant-funds-creation-institute-advance-ai-materials-science//|access-date=14 February 2022}}</ref> He is also active in making the science policy case for major national research initiatives such as AI for accelerating science<ref>{{cite web|title=Accelerating Science: A Grand Challenge for AI|url=https://cra.org/ccc/events/symposium-accelerating-science-grand-challenge-ai///|access-date=14 February 2022}}</ref> and AI for combating the epidemic of [[diseases of despair]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Combat the Diseases of Despair Epidemic|url=https://fas.org/sotu/#combat-despair|access-date=14 February 2022}}</ref>

==Honors==
* [[National Science Foundation]] Director's Award for Superior Accomplishment, 2013<ref>{{cite news|title=Honavar honored for his leadership of the NSF Big Data Program|url=http://news.psu.edu/story/294810/2013/11/11/academics/honavar-honored-nsf-leading-big-data-program|access-date=29 May 2015|archive-date=30 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150530031032/http://news.psu.edu/story/294810/2013/11/11/academics/honavar-honored-nsf-leading-big-data-program|url-status=dead}}</ref>
* [[National Science Foundation]] Director's Award for Collaborative Integration, 2012
* Margaret Ellen White Graduate Faculty Award, [[Iowa State University]], 2011<ref>{{cite web|title=Inside Iowa State|url=http://archive.inside.iastate.edu/pdf/11/092211.pdf|access-date=31 May 2015}}</ref>
* Outstanding Career Achievement in Research Award, [[College of Arts and Sciences|College of Liberal Arts and Sciences]], [[Iowa State University]], 2008<ref>{{cite web|title=Teaching, service and research awards to LAS faculty, staff|url=http://archive.las.iastate.edu/2008/08/29/teaching-service-and-research-awards-to-las-faculty-staff/|access-date=31 May 2015}}</ref>
* Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, [[Board of Regents, State of Iowa|Iowa Board of Regents]], 2007<ref>{{cite web|title=2007 Fall University Convocation & Awards Ceremony|url=http://archive.inside.iastate.edu/2007/0907/awards.shtml|access-date=31 May 2015}}</ref>
* Edward Frymoyer Endowed Chair in Information Sciences and Technology, [[Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology]], [[Pennsylvania State University]], 2013
* Senior Faculty Research Excellence Award, [[Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology]], [[Pennsylvania State University]], 2016
* 125 People of Impact, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, [[University of Wisconsin-Madison]], 2016<ref>{{cite web|title=125 People of Impact |url=http://125.ece.wisc.edu/?page_id=34| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828135941/http://125.ece.wisc.edu/?page_id=34 |access-date=25 August 2016| archive-date=2016-08-28 }} (Accessible through Internet Archive)</ref>
* Sudha Murty Distinguished (Visiting) Chair of Neurocomputing and Data Science, [[Indian Institute of Science]], 2016-2021<ref name="deccanherald.com"/>
* [[List of distinguished members of the Association for Computing Machinery|ACM Distinguished Member]], 2018<ref>{{cite web|title=2018 ACM Distinguished Members Recognized for Contributions that Have Revolutionized How We Live, Work and Play|url=https://www.acm.org/media-center/2018/november/distinguished-members-2018|access-date=November 8, 2018}}</ref>
* AAAS Fellow [[American Association for the Advancement of Science]],<ref>{{cite web|title=AAAS Honors Accomplished Scientists as 2018 Elected Fellows|url=https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-honors-accomplished-scientists-2018-elected-fellows|access-date=November 29, 2018}}</ref> 2018
* EAI Fellow European Alliance for Innovation,<ref>{{cite web|title=We are proud to announce the first EAI Fellows|date=10 May 2019 |url=https://blog.eai-conferences.org/2019/05/10/we-are-proud-to-announce-the-first-eai-fellows/|access-date=February 15, 2022}}</ref> 2019
* Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and Artificial Intelligence, [[Pennsylvania State University]], 2021<ref name="auto"/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://faculty.ist.psu.edu/vhonavar/ Personal home page]
* [http://faculty.ist.psu.edu/vhonavar/publist.html List of publications] from Penn State's profile
* [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pD_y458AAAAJ List of publications] on Google Scholar
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honavar, Vasant}}
[[Category:Artificial intelligence researchers]]
[[Category:Machine learning researchers]]
[[Category:American bioinformaticians]]
[[Category:American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Systems biologists]]
[[Category:American cognitive scientists]]
[[Category:Complex systems scientists]]
[[Category:Indian computer scientists]]
[[Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty]]
[[Category:Iowa State University faculty]]
[[Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni]]
[[Category:Drexel University alumni]]
[[Category:Bangalore University alumni]]
[[Category:Senior members of the IEEE]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American male writers of Indian descent]]
[[Category:1960 births]]
[[Category:People from Pune]]
[[Category:People from Bengaluru]]
[[Category:Indian male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American people of Konkani descent]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to the United States]]

Vasant Honavar - Revision history

ScarlettFlannaga at 11:45, 23 February 2026