Samer Al-khateeb, PhD
Assistant Professor
Samer Al-khateeb moved from Baghdad, Iraq to the USA in 2009 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA-Little Rock). After graduating he found himself love teaching and doing research so he decided to finish his master’s in Applied Science and then obtained his Ph.D. in Computer and Information Sciences from the same school. He is a former Postdoctorate Research Fellow at the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) at UA-Little Rock. He studies deviant acts (e.g., deviant cyber flash mobs, cyber propaganda campaigns, and fake news dissemination) on social media that are conducted by deviant groups (e.g., Daesh, Black-hat hackers, and Propagandist) which aim to influence individual’s behaviors and provoke hysteria among citizens. In addition to that, he studies the type of actors these deviant groups use to perform their acts, i.e., are they human (e.g., internet trolls) or automated actors (e.g., social bots) by leveraging social science theories (e.g., the theory of collective action), social network analysis (e.g., centralities and community detection algorithms), and social cyber forensics (e.g., metadata collection to uncover the hidden relations among these actors across platforms).
He has many publications including book chapters, journal papers, conferences proceedings, and conferences presentations. He won various awards such as the Staff Achievement Award for Educational Achievements, Excellence in Research Award, Outstanding Graduating Student Award (Master's Level), Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, the Best Paper Award, 2nd Place Most Innovative Award, and 2nd Place Societal Impact Award, among others.
Teaching Interests
- Computer and Information Science
Research Focus
Deviant Behavioral Modeling
Deviant Cyber Flash Mobs (DCFMs)
Cyber Propaganda Campaigns
Social Cyber Forensics
Social Computing
Social Media Mining
Cyber Collective Actions
Bots Behaviours, Evolution, and DetectionDepartment
Computer Science, Design and Journalism
Position
Assistant Professor