Ankit Shah

Biography

Ankit Shah is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Decision Technologies at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (IU). He is serving as the Deputy Director of Cybersecurity for Kelley’s Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Before coming to IU, Dr. Shah was a faculty member at the University of South Florida (USF), where he also directed its Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory for Secure and Efficient Systems and was a member of its Institute for Artificial Intelligence + X (AI+X). Previously, he was a researcher in the field of Reinforcement Learning at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Center for Secure Information Systems in Virginia. With over nine years of industry experience in the Information Technology and Security sector, he has held diverse roles, bringing both technical expertise and executive experience.

Dr. Shah’s research focuses on enhancing organizational cybersecurity by advancing threat detection and mitigation technologies, optimizing human resource management strategies, and refining operational processes to improve overall security resilience. He develops advanced business technologies by integrating machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and artificial intelligence (AI) to strengthen cybersecurity systems (AI/ML in Cybersecurity). His work also investigates the resilience and robustness of AI-enabled defense systems, employing deep reinforcement learning and generative AI/ML/DL methodologies for rigorous red team evaluations (Security of AI-enabled Systems). His mission is to advance the field of cybersecurity by generating critical knowledge in these key areas, essential for protecting organizations against both known and emerging threats. His research is sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and industry partners. Dr. Shah's work has been published in top security journals, including IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security, ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology, and IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, among others. He is a senior member of IEEE and INFORMS, lifetime member of AAAI, and a member of AIS and ACM, among others. Academic fun fact: Dr. Shah's Erdős number is 3 and Dijkstra number is 4.

Dr. Shah has served in various capacities for technical conferences and associations. He has been elected to serve as a Board Member for the INFORMS Military and Security Society (MAS) for the 2025-2028 term and the Organizing Committee Chair for the upcoming 2027 INFORMS Conference on Security. He has served as an Organizing Committee Member for the Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Security (AICS) at the AAAI 2023-2026 conferences and for the 2024 INFORMS Conference on Security. He was also the Workshop Chair for the IEEE Conference on Dependable and Secure Computing (IEEE DSC) 2023, as well as the Cybersecurity Cluster Chair for the INFORMS Annual Meeting in 2020 and 2022. His expertise has led to invitations for numerous technical talks and seminars from government organizations, industry partners, and technical associations.