Rohini Srihari is a scientist, educator and entrepreneur. Dr. Srihari is a professor in the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at the State University of New York, Buffalo where her research focuses on natural language processing, artificial intelligence, machine learning and information retrieval. Srihari has partnered on projects that investigate disinformation, with the goal of improving digital literacy. Additionally, she has worked extensively with the U.S. government in developing innovative multilingual text mining solutions. She also founded and directed technology startups focusing on “big data” analytics solutions for various markets. She has published over 100 research papers and hold two US patents.

Her recent research focuses on advancing the state-of-the-art in “social-bots” capable of engaging in empathetic, interesting and purposeful conversations. She recently supervised an interdisciplinary student team (Team Proto) that competed and won the bronze prize in the Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge 4.