N.C. A&T Professor Recognized by NIH Institute with Rookie of the Year Award

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Sept. 3, 2024) – Mohd Anwar, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, was awarded the Rookie of the Year Award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), one of 27 institutes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

Anwar is a Data and Technology Advancement (DATA) National Service Scholar in NIBIB’s Division of Health Informatics Technology. He is an expert in artificial intelligence (AI) research and most of his research affiliations are connected to how AI and machine learning is applied to both health care and cybersecurity. 

“I am using these AI and machine learning algorithms to glean insights into human health and disease from wearable device data and electronic health records data,” said Anwar. “We need to make sure that we have an accurate understanding of the context when interpreting data or may need to simply clearly understand what the data are representing. If you misunderstand, you will build the wrong model.”

Anwar’s goal is to link different types of information relative to health and identify if there are digital biomarkers that we can have that tell us about either detecting a disease, understanding the risk factors of the disease or ways to mitigate those risk factors. 

“All those measurements about our biological systems, whether it comes from wearable devices or other observations, I aim to build models that can predict, diagnose or identify disease and risks,” he said. 

For example, some wearable watches can help a user measure and track different phases of sleep, if they are restless and for how long. This information can be used not only to determine if a person may have a sleep disorder, but also can be indicative of other conditions to which lack of sleep can contribute.

Anwar describes the initial focus in “disease-agnostic research,” meaning the research does not look at a particular disease, but he has been looking at the recent pandemic and comparing flu-like symptoms to COVID-19 symptoms and various comorbidity factors.

Anwar began his academic career at this institution by joining as an assistant professor in 2012, subsequently being promoted to associate professor with tenure and ultimately becoming full professor. His research also explores minority health issues including an article published in the Springer Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities this year: “Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Social Determinants of Health Issues of Marginalized Black and Asian Communities: A Social Media Analysis Empowered by Natural Language Processing.”

“Machine learning is a subset of AI, but it is such a predominant constituent of AI that the other techniques and methods often take a backseat to it,” said Anwar. “We typically say AI and machine learning together because we don’t want to limit other elements that come into play.”

Anwar highlights ChatGPT as an example of AI tools that people generally refer to as AI, though specifically, it is an AI-powered language model. “ChatGPT showcases how a machine can learn and process what humans are saying and how it can provide responses in the same way a human does. This is what we call natural language processing and generation,” said Anwar. “This is just a small part of AI and machine learning applied to natural language processing.” 

Anwar believes we are making great progress to elevate a machine’s intelligence levels so that it can function as a “seamless agent” working along with a human.

Anwar has advised and graduated 14 Ph.D. and 21 master’s students over the years, and 10 of his Ph.D. advisees have secured faculty position in various universities. He also engaged a large number of undergraduate and early college/high school students in research activities.  

Additionally, Anwar has established a successful research program through more than 130 publications in prestigious journals and conferences, while also successfully acquiring grants from esteemed organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, Environmental Protection Agency, IBM and NIH. 

Anwar is the first RTI Scholar from A&T, a prestigious opportunity that selects a few from a pool of leading experts across North Carolina universities. The project allowed him to study the chatter on X, formerly known as Twitter, on different types of opioid drugs and connecting that to which drug contributes to the most deaths. This allowed the research team to use natural language processing and AI techniques to predict earlier than the death data and identify which drugs were contributing to North Carolina deaths.

Anwar also established the IBM Quantum Research Center along with colleagues at the university, enhancing the ability to solve problems too complex for classic computers. 

“Today we have AI, but we can do so much more in the future by harnessing the strength of quantum computing and AI because quantum computers can offer better computational efficiency and optimization to AI algorithms than that of classical computers,” he said. 

Anwar’s expertise in these areas helped him stand out in NIBIB’s national search for scholars. The institute’s leadership awarded Anwar the Rookie of the Year Award for his “impactful contribution to the advancement of NIBIB’s mission during his inaugural years.” 

The NIBIB’s mission is to “transform, through technology development, our understanding of disease and its prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment. NIBIB supports new tools and technologies to improve human health within its internal laboratories and through grants, collaborations and training.”

Anwar has worked with the NIBIB since October 2022, and he will conclude his service as a Data Scholar this fall.