Farzana Islam

I build AI systems that are interpretable, accountable, and trustworthy. My work sits at the intersection of machine learning, NLP, and human-centered computing across health, misinformation, and responsible AI.

Human-Centered AI Machine Learning Responsible AI
Farzana Islam
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Farzana Islam
About

Background & Expertise

AI systems increasingly shape high-stakes decisions, from healthcare to information access to opportunity allocation. Yet the people most affected often cannot understand or contest what these systems produce. That gap drives my research.

I work at the intersection of AI and human-centered computing, combining technical ML work with empirical studies of how people experience AI in practice. On the technical side, I have built NLP classifiers for misinformation detection [1], trained models on clinical data and developed physician-validated fuzzy logic systems for stroke risk prediction [2]. On the human side, I conduct cross-cultural qualitative interviews across regions [3], run participatory studies with clinicians, developers, and end users [4], and use mixed methods to study real-world interaction with AI [5]. My recent work produced a participatory five-pillar explainability framework for AI-driven health applications, published at JMIR (Q1, IF 6.0). My research has been published in JMIR, ACM CHI, ACM UbiComp, ACM JCSS, IEEE, Springer, and Oxford University Press.

My work is grounded in a simple conviction: meaningful AI systems cannot be designed without understanding how people think, and human-AI interaction cannot be studied without understanding what the system is actually doing.

I also teach. I serve as an Adjunct Lecturer at Independent University, Bangladesh and Senior Lab Instructor at North South University, where I have worked with over 1,000 undergrad students across programming and computing courses.

I completed my MSc in Computer Science at Independent University, Bangladesh, and my BSc in Computer Science and Engineering at North South University. I am currently seeking PhD opportunities to pursue rigorous research at the intersection of machine learning and human-centered computing, where technical work and empirical understanding of people inform each other.

"My goal is to make AI systems that are not just accurate, but interpretable, accountable, and genuinely useful for the people who need them most."

PythonScikit-learnObject-Oriented ProgrammingOpenAI APIMATLABFuzzy LogicMixed MethodsThematic AnalysisLaTeXQualtrics
Education
M.Sc. in Computer Science (CS), Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB)
B.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), North South University (NSU)
Research Interests
Human-Centered AI · Machine Learning
Generative & Responsible AI · AI for Health
Reviewer
AIES (PC member) · ACM CHI · ACM CSCW · IEEE PerCom · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
Memberships
ACM SIGCHI · International Association for Safe & Ethical AI (IASEAI)
Location
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email
fi.farzanaislam@gmail.com
Current Work

Active Research

LLMs in Clinical Decision Support: Explainability, Fairness, and Trust

I am currently auditing bias in LLM generated clinical recommendations, studying how explanations shape human trust, and grounding everything in real patient data. As this work matures, I intend to push deeper into model evaluation, bias mitigation, and explanation generation, toward clinical AI that is not just capable, but fair and trustworthy.

Related work 1: Who Gets What Advice? Counterfactual and Linguistic Audits of Bias in LLM Clinical Recommendations — Under Submission

Related work 2: The Explainability Illusion: Formalising Localisation as a Necessary Condition for XAI in Health AI — Under Submission

Related work 3: When AI Explains Itself: Do LLM Explanations Help or Mislead Human Decision-Making? — In Progress

Bias in LLM Recommendations Explainability Human Trust Clinical AI
Research

Project Areas

SHAP VALUES SP DP Smoking History Risk: 82% Clinical Alignment Contextual Personalization Cultural Relevance Trust Transparency Usability · Design n=137 · 20 interviews
AI in Healthcare · Machine Learning
Explainable AI for mHealth & Clinical Decision-Making
Sequential mixed-methods study examining XAI needs across clinicians, XAI experts, and developers in AI-driven mHealth. Produced a five-pillar XAI framework. Ongoing: controlled LLM experiment on health risk decisions and over-reliance.
JMIR (Q1, IF 6.0) — Participatory XAI Framework for mHealth
ACM UbiComp/ISWC '24 — Know Your Users: XAI in Bangladesh
MSc Thesis — Human-Centered XAI for mHealth
Explainable AI mHealth Mixed Methods LLMs
🇧🇩 🇵🇰 🇮🇳 🇳🇵 4 Countries · South Asia 36 Stakeholder Interviews Developers Policymakers Academics Community ACM CHI '26 ACM ICTD '24 Oxford Univ. Press ACM JCSS Best Paper
Applied AI Ethics & Governance · Fairness & Equity
AI Accountability & Ethics Across South Asia
Co-led multi-stakeholder qualitative research with 36 interviews across Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal, mapping AI accountability gaps, governance challenges, and ethics principles. Covers generative AI regulation, CS ethics education, and regional AI policy.
CHI EA '26 — AI Accountability Framework, South Asia
ACM ICTD '24 — AI Ethics for Bangladesh
Oxford Univ. Press '25 — Regulation of GenAI in South Asia
ACM JCSS '23 — Ethics in Global CS Education 🏆 Best Paper
AI Ethics Governance Fairness & Equity AI in Education
FAKE NEWS DETECTION বাংলা NB 70% LR 78% RF 85% FAKE REAL 1st Bengali Fake News Dataset STROKE RISK MODEL 32 Fuzzy Rules HIGH RISK 500 records · physician-validated AI RESCUE ROBOT AI 🧍 Human Detected 🔥
Machine Learning · Computer & Information Security
ML for Misinformation, Clinical Risk & Robotics
Three applied ML projects united by a focus on building and critically evaluating classifiers: one of the first Bengali fake news datasets (85% Random Forest accuracy), an interpretable fuzzy-logic stroke predictor preferred by clinicians over black-box models, and an AI rescue robot with real-time human detection.
IEEE IS '20 — Bengali Fake News Detection
Springer AISC + ACM UbiComp '18 — Stroke Risk via Fuzzy Logic
IJAIP — Data Mining & Fuzzy Logic for Stroke (In Press)
BSc Thesis — "Bindu" AI Firefighting Rescue Robot
Machine Learning NLP Misinformation Clinical AI
IoT Sensor 3.2m ⚠ FLOOD Alert sent Notify village 📲 Broadcast 👨‍👩‍👧 👴 👩‍🌾 👨‍👩‍👦 NE Bangladesh · Flash Flood Zone
IoT & Community Technology · Social Impact
Real-Time Flood Warning System for Rural Bangladesh
Designed and deployed a low-cost IoT sensor network for real-time water level monitoring and mobile-based flood alerting in flash flood-prone communities of North-Eastern Bangladesh. Grounded in community co-design, the system demonstrates how accessible technology can address climate vulnerability without requiring AI.
IJSWCC 2021 — Development & Testing of the Flood Warning System
ACM CHI EA '20 — Cooperative Deployment of Shonabondhu
NSysS '17 (Poster) — Shona Bondhu: IoT Flood Monitoring
IoT Sensors Community Co-design Climate Tech Social Impact
Publications

Peer-Reviewed Works

2026
JMIR
Journal
A Proposed Participatory Framework for Explainable AI in mHealth
Farzana Islam, Ashraful Islam, M Ashraful Amin, and Moinul Zaber
Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) — Q1, IF: 6.0
CHI
Extended Abstract
Building Bridges: A Participatory Framework for AI Accountability in South Asia
Farzana Islam, Tasmiah Tahsin Mayeesha, and Nova Ahmed
ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (~27% acc.)
In Press
IJAIP
Journal
Data Mining Techniques and Fuzzy Logic to Build a Risk Prediction System for Stroke
Farzana Islam, and Rashedur M. Rahman
International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms (IJAIP)
2025
Oxford
Book Chapter
Navigating the Unknown — Regulation of Generative AI in South Asia
Tasmiah Tahsin Mayeesha, Farzana Islam, Shahbaz Ahmed, and Nova Ahmed
Oxford Intersections: Social Media in Society and Culture — Oxford University Press
2024
ICTD
Conference
AI4Bangladesh: AI Ethics for Bangladesh — Challenges, Risks, Principles, and Suggestions
Tasmiah Tahsin Mayeesha, Farzana Islam, and Nova Ahmed
International Conference on Information & Communication Technologies and Development (~19% acceptance rate)
UbiComp
Workshop
Know Your Users: Towards Explainable AI in Bangladesh
Farzana Islam, Tasmiah Tahsin Mayeesha, and Nova Ahmed
ACM international joint conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp)
2023
JCSS
Journal
Making Ethics at Home in Global CS Education: Provoking Stories from the Souths
Marisol Wong-Villacres, Cat Kutay, Shaimaa Lazem, Nova Ahmed, Cristina Abad, Cesar Collazos, Shady Elbassuoni, Farzana Islam, Deepa Singh, Tasmiah Tahsin Mayeesha, Martin Mabeifam Ujakpa, Tariq Zaman, and Nicola J Bidwell
ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies (JCSS)
🏆 Best Journal Paper Award — ACM SIGCHI Compass 2023
2021
IJSWCC
Journal
Low-Cost Water Level Sensor & Mobile-Based Real-Time Flood Warning System
Nova Ahmed, Md S Islam, Sifat Kalam, Farzana Islam, Nabila Chowdhury, Raquebul Salman Hafiz, Nazmus Sadat, Rozana Tabassum, Nazmun Nahar, Maisha Mamtaz, and Shoaib Ahmed
International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control (IJSWCC)
2020
IEEE IS
Conference
Bengali Fake News Detection
Farzana Islam, Mohammad Minhazul Alam, SM Shahadat Hossain, Abdul Motaleb, Sabrina Yeasmin, Mehedi Hasan, and Rashedur M Rahman
IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Systems
2017
Springer
Conference & Book Chapter
Potential Risk Factor Analysis and Risk Prediction System for Stroke Using Fuzzy Logic
Farzana Islam, Sarah Binta Alam Shoilee, Mithi Shams, and Rashedur M Rahman
Artificial Intelligence Trends in Intelligent Systems, Springer AISC, Vol. 573
Full list on Google Scholar
Honors & Awards

Recognition & Grants

🏅
2026
Top Achiever's Award
26th Convocation — Independent University, Bangladesh
✈️
2024
Research Travel Grant
North South University — UbiComp '24, Melbourne
🏆
2023
Best Journal Paper Award
ACM SIGCHI Compass '23 — ACM JCSS · Cape Town
🎓
2021
Cum Laude
23rd Convocation — North South University, Bangladesh
✈️
2018
Student Travel Grant
ACM UbiComp/ISWC '18 — Singapore
📝
Ongoing
Peer Reviewer
ACM CHI · ACM CSCW · IEEE PerCom · ACM COMPASS · IJHCI
Contact

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Happy to discuss PhD opportunities, research collaborations, or speaking invitations. I'll respond within a few working days.

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