Dr. Daehan Kwak
Dr. Daehan Kwak

Dr. Daehan Kwak, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Computer Science
Graduate Program Coordinator
Department of Computer Science and Technology, Kean University

Applied AI/ML Intelligent Systems Smart Transportation Smart Health Networking
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About

Biography

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Kean University, Union, NJ, USA. I received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, in 2017, and the M.S. degree from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea, in 2008.

I was a member of the Laboratory for Networked Systems and Security (Disco Lab) and my research advisers are the late Dr. Liviu Iftode and Dr. Badri Nath. I was with the Telematics and USN Research Division, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), as a research intern during my master's program. I worked as a research staff at the UWB Wireless Research Center, Inha University, and Network Media Management and Optimization Lab, Yonsei University.

My research is focused on applied AI/ML and intelligent system design for data-driven Smart Systems, integrating advances in computing, networking, and data analytics to enable innovative, interdisciplinary applications such as smart transportation, smart health, and smart urban environments.

I currently serve as Graduate Program Coordinator for the MS and PhD in Computer Science, and Chair of the Department Curriculum Committee at Kean University. I am also a Fellow at the Faculty Futures AI Studio of the New Jersey AI Hub (Princeton, NJ).

Education
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ, 2017
M.S. in Information and Communications Engineering
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Daejeon, Korea, 2008
B.E. in Information and Computer Engineering
Ajou University
Suwon, Korea, 2005
Professional Roles
Fellow, Faculty Futures AI Studio
New Jersey AI Hub, Princeton, NJ
Jan 2026 – June 2026
Councilor, Mathematics & Computer Sciences Division
Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)
Jul 2020 – May 2026
Research

Research Interests

My research spans applied AI/ML, computing, and networking, developing intelligent, data-driven systems for real-world applications in transportation, healthcare, and urban environments.

🧠
Applied AI/ML & Intelligent Systems

Multimodal AI and data fusion; deep reinforcement learning; federated and privacy-preserving learning; LLMs and knowledge graphs; affective computing; security/anomaly detection.

🏥
Smart Health

IoT for healthcare; EHR summarization and risk assessment; LLM-augmented knowledge graphs; mental health analytics via NLP; conversational AI for care management.

🚗
Smart Transportation

Social vehicle navigation; traffic sentiment analysis; connected vehicular systems; balanced routing; counterfactual travel time estimation; vehicular cloud computing.

💻
Computing

Vehicular, mobile, and pervasive computing; urban computing; vehicular cloud computing; distributed computing; edge computing and task offloading.

📡
Networking

MAC/Transport protocols; vehicular networks; social networks; sensor networks; body area networks; cooperative relay networks; handoff; routing.

🔒
Security & Privacy

Privacy-preserving federated learning; IoMT security; cybersecurity binary code analysis; deepfake detection; smart device vulnerability assessment.

Funding

Research Grants

Over $8.2 million in external and internal research funding secured as PI or Co-PI.

External Grants
NSF
S-STEM: Advancing Graduate Success and Workforce Preparation in Computer Science
National Science Foundation, NSF DUE # 2620077
PI · 2026 – 2032 NSF ↗
$2,000,000
NSF
CyberAI Innovation: Building Academic Pathways for the CyberAI Workforce
National Science Foundation, NSF DGE # 2623305
PI · 2026 – 2029 NSF ↗
$500,000
NSF
NSF Finders Foundry: Critiquing and Learning to Evaluate AI Financial Reasoning
National Science Foundation, NSF TI # 2627827
PI · 2026 NSF ↗ Website ↗
$50,000
NSF
Advancing Computer Science Doctoral Education
National Science Foundation, NSF EES # 24444894
PI · 2025 NSF ↗
$1,999,935
NSF
Applying Student Knowledge for Success in Cybersecurity and Data Science
National Science Foundation, NSF DUE # 2129795
Co-PI · 2021 – 2024 NSF ↗
$1,641,645
NSF
Building Capacity: Pathway to Success for Students and Faculty in Computing
National Science Foundation, NSF HRD # 1928452
Co-PI · 2019 – 2021 NSF ↗
$1,700,277
NSF
Socially Informed Traffic Signal Control for Improving Near Roadway Air Quality
National Science Foundation, NSF CNS # 2318696
PI · 2023 – 2025 NSF ↗
$201,312
G
Google ExploreCSR (& TensorFlow add-on funding)
Google
PI · 2021 – 2022
$30,500
CPC
EHR Risk Assessment and Decision Tree Chatbot
CPC Integrated Health Grant
PI · 2025 – 2026
$15,000
CPC
EHR Summarization and Intelligent Chatbot Integration
CPC Integrated Health Grant
PI · 2023 – 2024
$15,000
CPC
Caremanage: Enhancing the Capacity of Care Managers via Conversational AI
CPC Behavioral Healthcare Grant
PI · 2020 – 2023
$32,000
Publications

Selected Publications

A selection of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. View all on Google Scholar →

Fed-IoMT-Block: A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Secure Federated Learning in Consumer-Centric Internet of Medical Things
A. Khan, R. Mahendran, F. Ullah, F. Ali, N. Alghamdi, A. AlZubi, and D. Kwak‡
IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, 2025 (IF: 10.9)
Q1 DOI ↗
Enhanced Diabetic Retinopathy Detection: An Explainable Semi-Supervised Approach Using Contrastive Learning
R. Ali, F. Khan, Z. Rehman, D. Kwak‡, and F. Ali
IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 2025 (IF: 6.8)
Q1 DOI ↗
Binary Code Analysis for Cybersecurity: A Systematic Review of Forensic Techniques in Vulnerability Detection and Anti-Evasion Strategies
H. Javed, F. Ali, B. Shah, and D. Kwak‡
IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 167139-167164, 2025 (IF: 3.6)
Q1 DOI ↗
Action unit based micro-expression recognition framework for driver emotional state detection
P. Malik, J. Singh, F. Ali, S. S. Sehra, and D. Kwak‡
Scientific Reports, vol. 15, no. 1, Art. no. 27824, 2025 (IF: 3.9)
Q1 DOI ↗
A Systematic Review of Contemporary Indoor Positioning Systems: Taxonomy, Techniques, and Algorithms
J. Singh, N. Tyagi, S. Singh, F. Ali, and D. Kwak‡
IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 11, no. 21, pp. 34717–34733, Nov. 2024 (IF: 10.6)
Q1 DOI ↗
Beyond the Illusion: Ensemble Learning for Effective Voice Deepfake Detection
G. Ali, J. Rashid, M.R.U. Hussnain, M.U. Tariq, A. Ghani, and D. Kwak‡
IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 149940–149959, Oct. 2024 (IF: 3.4)
Q1 DOI ↗
User Safety and Security in the Metaverse: A Critical Review
S. Sharma, J. Singh, A. Gupta, F. Ali, F. Khan, and D. Kwak‡
IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, vol. 5, pp. 5467–5487, May 2024 (IF: 6.3)
Q1 DOI ↗
Sentiment analysis of the COVID-19 vaccine perception
B. Park, I. S. Jang, and D. Kwak‡
Health Informatics Journal, vol. 30, no. 1, Jan. 2024 (IF: 2.2)
Q2 DOI ↗
A smart healthcare monitoring system for heart disease prediction based on ensemble deep learning and feature fusion
F. Ali, S. Ei-Sappagh, SMR Islam, D. Kwak, A. Ali, M. Imran, and K.S. Kwak
Information Fusion, vol. 63, pp. 208–222, 2020 (IF: 17.564)
Q1 DOI ↗
Evaluation of the Use of Growth Mindset in the Computer Science Classroom
D. Kwak, P. Morreale, S. Hug, Y. Kumar, J. Chu, C. Huang, J. Li and P. Wang
Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), 2022
ACM SIGCSE
InsideOut: Model to Predict Outside CO Concentrations from Mobile CO Dosimeter Measurements Inside Vehicles
S. Devarakonda, S. Chittaranjan, D. Kwak, and B. Nath
17th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems (MobiQuitous), 2020, pp. 206–214
MobiQuitous DOI ↗
Investigating remote driving over the LTE network
R. Liu, D. Kwak, S. Devarakonda, K. Bekris, and L. Iftode
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces (AutomotiveUI), 2017, pp. 264–269
AutomotiveUI DOI ↗
Your search path tells others where to park: Towards fine-grained parking availability crowdsourcing
R. Liu, Y. Yang, D. Kwak, D. Zhang, L. Iftode, and B. Nath
Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (UbiComp), vol. 1, no. 3, 2017
UbiComp Acceptance: 8.6% DOI ↗
DoppelDriver: Counterfactual actual travel times for alternative routes
D. Kwak, D. Kim, R. Liu, B. Nath, and L. Iftode
IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), 2015, pp. 146–151
IEEE PerCom DOI ↗
Tweeting Traffic Image Reports on the Road
D. Kwak, D. Kim, R. Liu, B. Nath, and L. Iftode
6th International Conference on Mobile Computing, Applications and Services (EAI MobiCASE), 2014, pp. 44–63
MobiCASE DOI ↗
Social vehicle navigation: Integrating shared driving experience into vehicle navigation
D. Kwak, R. Liu, D. Kim, B. Nath, and L. Iftode
14th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (ACM HotMobile), 2013, pp. 1–6
ACM HotMobile DOI ↗
Granted Patents
"Method and System for Providing Counterfactual Travel Times for Alternative Routes"
Patent No. KR101607384B1, Granted Mar. 2016
"System for Next Generation KIOSK Type Order based on Smart Phone Payment and Payment Method"
Patent No. KR101593273B1, Granted Feb. 2016
"Service Method and System for Ticketing and Entrance based on Near Field Communication"
Patent No. KR101533500B1, Granted Jul. 2015
"KIOSK System"
Patent No. KR200476481Y1, Granted Mar. 2015
Published Patent Applications
"Method and System for Supporting u-Health based on IoT using Artificial Intelligence"
Patent Application No. KR101917043B1, Published Jan. 2019
"Transaction Processing Method and Transaction Processing System using Mobile Device"
Patent Application No. KR20140011999A, Published Jul. 2014
"Method and System for Generating Error Controlling Code"
Patent Application No. KR101299224B1, Published Aug. 2013
"The Pacing Method for High Speed TCP over Optical Burst Switching Networks"
Patent Application No. KR20060054247A, Published May 2006
Recognition

Honors & Awards

2025
Excellence in Research Award, Applied Science
Kean University
2023
Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE)
International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines
2022
Presidential Excellence Award for Scholarship/Research
Kean University
2022
Faculty Mentor Award, Early Career
Mathematics & Computer Sciences Division, Council on Undergraduate Research
2021
Faculty Research Mentor of the Year
Kean University
2020
Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi
Academic Honor Society Induction
2005 – 2008
BK21 (Brain Korea) Scholarship
KAIST, Korea
2002
United States Army Commendation Medal (ARCOM)
Awarded by the Commanding General of the 19th Theater Support Command (TSC)
2002
Distinguished KATUSA Award
Korean Augmentation to the United States Army
2001 – 2002
United States Army Achievement Medal (AAM) × 2
Awarded by the 55th MMC Commander and 19th TSC Commanding General
News

Recent News

2026
Aug
Awarded $2M NSF S-STEM grant (#2620077) for CS graduate success & $500K NSF CyberAI grant (#2623305) for CyberAI pathways.
2026
Jul
Awarded $50K NSF FINDERS Foundry grant (#2627827) for evaluating AI financial reasoning.
2024
Nov
Abiodun Obafemi wins 1st place and Maliha Haider wins 2nd place at the 36th GMiS Conference Research Poster Competition (Graduate category).
2024
Apr
Tristram Dacayan named Undergraduate Researcher of the Year 2024. Maliha Haider named Valedictorian 2024.
2023
Oct
Gabriel Serrano wins 2nd place at the 35th GMiS Conference and 3rd place at the 2023 ACM Tapia Conference.
2023
Aug
Daniel Ojeda was accepted to the NSF CSGrad4US Graduate Fellowship program.
2022
Dec
Featured in Kean News: "How Two Students Are Changing Medicine with Help from Google"
2022
Oct
Xavier Amparo wins 1st place at 34th GMiS Conference. Featured in "Kean Senior Wins Top Undergraduate Award at Prestigious GMiS Conference"
2022
Jul
Awarded the CUR Faculty Mentor Award, Early Career. Featured in "Kean Computer Science Assistant Professor Wins Faculty Mentor Award"
2021
Oct
Students win multiple awards at the 33rd GMiS Conference: 1st place (Varun Medidi), 2nd place (David Serra, Carlier Hernandez), Honorable Mentions (Maliha Haider, Aspen Akunne), and 1st place Hackathon (Tristram Dacayan).
2021
Sep
Featured: "Kean University Wins Two National Science Foundation Grants to Support Diversity in Computer Science"
Teaching

Teaching Experience

Courses taught at Kean University's Department of Computer Science and Technology since Fall 2017.

CPS 1231
Fundamentals of Computer Science

Core introductory course covering programming fundamentals, data structures, and algorithmic thinking.

CPS 1010
Introduction to Computing Systems

Foundational course exploring computing systems, hardware components, and basic system architecture.

TECH 3620
Mobile Application Development

Hands-on course in mobile app design and development for modern platforms and user experiences.

CPS 4222
Principles of Networking

Advanced course covering network protocols, architectures, security principles, and distributed systems.

CPS 4961 / TECH 4961
Senior Research

Capstone research course guiding students through independent research projects in computer science.

CPS 4881/2/3
Independent Study

Individualized research and study on specialized topics in CS, tailored to student interests.

Mentoring

Student Mentoring & Awards

Dedicated to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in research, with many students earning national recognition and awards.

Selected Student Achievements
Danny Munoz
Carl L. Toney 'Joy of Discovery' Research Award, $3,500

May 2025

Rayleen Ramos
2025 NCWIT AiC Collegiate Award Finalist

May 2025

Dahana Moz Ruiz
CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, Honorable Mention

January 2025

Abiodun Obafemi
1st Place, Research Poster Competition, 36th GMiS Conference

Graduate category, November 2024

Maliha Haider
2nd Place, Research Poster Competition, 36th GMiS Conference; Valedictorian 2024

Graduate category, November 2024

Tristram Dacayan
Undergraduate Researcher of the Year 2024

April 2024

Gabriel Serrano
2nd Place, 35th GMiS Conference; 3rd Place, 2023 ACM Tapia Conference

Undergraduate, October 2023

Xavier Amparo
1st Place, Research Poster Competition, 34th GMiS Conference

Undergraduate, October 2022

Service

Professional Service

Editorial Work
Guest Editor, Electronics (SCI-E), 2019-2020, Special Issue: Applications for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems
Guest Editor, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (SCI-E), 2019-2020, Special Issue: Smart Antennas and Intelligent Sensors Based Systems
Journal Reviewer
IEEE Transaction on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2016 – present
IEEE Access, 2018 – present
IEEE Internet Computing, 2020 – present
ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2017 – present
Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2017 – present
Travel Behaviour and Society, 2020 – present
Journal of Communications and Networks, Sensors, Electronics, Informatics, Health and Technology
University Service
Graduate Program Coordinator, MS and PhD in Computer Science (2025 – present)
Chair, Department Curriculum Committee (2023 – present)
Chair, Department Data Management Committee (2022 – 2023)
CSMT College Curriculum Committee member (2020 – 2024)
Department Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee (2019 – present)
Faculty Search Committee; ARTP Committee; CS and IT Program Assessment Coordinator
Contact
📍
Office
Green Lane Academic Building (GLAB) 417
Department of Computer Science and Technology
1000 Morris Ave, Union, NJ 07083
📞
Phone
(908) 737-4773
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