Nitesh Chawla

Nitesh Chawla

Nitesh Chawla is the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and the Lucy Family Director for Data & AI Academic Strategy, leading the Data, AI, and Computing Initiative at the University of Notre Dame. His research is focused on artificial intelligence, data science, and network science, and is motivated by the question of how technology can advance the common good through convergence. He is a Fellow of: the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE); the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM); the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the National Academy of Engineers New Faculty Fellowship, IEEE CIS Outstanding Early Career Award, Rodney F. Ganey Community Impact Award, IBM Big Data & Analytics Faculty Award, IBM Watson Faculty Award, and the 1st Source Bank Technology Commercialization Award. He is a serial entrepreneur, having (co-)founded multiple start-ups.

Grounding Foundation Models with Local Context for Real-World Applications

Abstract:

Foundation models are remarkably capable but fundamentally lack local context, which are  the domain-specific, community-specific, and structurally rich knowledge required by real-world applications. In this talk, I will discuss our work on bridging this gap through knowledge graphs, localized foundation models, and domain-aware reasoning. I will show how these approaches enable applications for wildlife conservation research, navigation of Colombia’s Truth Commission archives, and healthcare, the very settings where generic model knowledge falls short and local context is everything.