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Hi folks! I am Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Texas State University. Academically, I have worked as Assistant Professor of Practice in Department of Computer Science at University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and with Texas A&M University at Texarkana (TAMUT) as a Visiting Assistant Professor. I am currently chair of EMBS lone star section. For latest events please check our website.

For couple of years, I worked as a Data Scientist and Program Manager at Hiller Measurements, Austin, USA. Prior to that, I was a post-doctorate researcher on US-Qatar Joint Collaborative Project on “Wireless Medical Device Security”. The project was a joint research between Temple University (USA), University of Idaho (USA) and Qatar University (Qatar). I also worked as a visiting researcher at Wichita State University, Kansas, USA.

My research is broadly in the area of cognitive AI, security of cyber physical systems, smart health and trustworthy AI.

2026 News!

  1. NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute University Ambassador and Certified Instructor on “Building AI Agents with Multimodal Models”.
  2. Roopika Ganesh, and Heena Rathore, “Repetition-Aware Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback for Empathetic Dialogue”, The 14th IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), 2026.
  3. Arjun Gyawali, Rakesh Das, Heena Rathore, “Can LLMs Classify Vehicular Basic Safety Messages Anomalies?”, FLAIRS 2026.
  4. Alden Duarte-Vasquez, Bishal Thapa, Sahar Hooshmand, Heena Rathore, “Training Ethical Language Models via Reinforcement Learning from AI Feedback”, FLAIRS 2026.
  5. Heena Rathore, “Trust is the bottleneck”, IEEE Pulse Magazine, 2026.
  6. Heena Rathore, “Innovate with AI: AI Entrepreneurship Camp Model to Empower Middle-School Students”, IEEE ISEC, 2026.
  7. Heena Rathore, “AI as a Learning Companion in Security and Cryptography Education”, IEEE ISEC 2026.
  8. Heena Rathore, “Reimagining Cybersecurity Graduate Education Through Research-Based Role-Playing”, ASEE 2026.
  9. CAHSI LREU Mentor, 2026.
  10. Shivangi Tripathi, Teancy Jennifer Rajesh, Henry Griffith, and Heena Rathore, “Paragraph-Level Hallucination Detection and Correction for Trustworthy Large Language Models in Networked Systems”, 2026 IEEE 23rd Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2026, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/CCNC65079.2026.11366495, 2026.
  11. Roopika Ganesh, and Heena Rathore, “Scaling MLFFN-based Lexicon Generation for Trustworthy and Explainable Cyber Physical Systems”, 2026 IEEE 23rd Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2026, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/CCNC65079.2026.11366490, 2026.
  12. Rakesh Das, Henry Griffith, Heena Rathore, “Distinguishing Sensor Faults and Malicious Attacks in Connected Vehicles Using Machine Learning”, 2026 IEEE 23rd Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2026, pp. 1-7, doi: 10.1109/CCNC65079.2026.11366546.
  13. Programme Advisory Board for the Certificate in Advanced Web Technologies Programme, Programme Advisory Board for the Certificate in Big Data Technologies programme, Namibia University of Science and Technology
  14. Want to submit?

Research interests:

  • Cognitive Artificial Intelligence,
  • Cyber physical systems,
  • Security and Privacy,
  • Distributed Systems,
  • Large Language models,
  • Biologically inspired systems.

Background

I was a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Research Scholar at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur, India. My Ph.D. dissertation revolved around “Improving Security in Wireless Sensor Network through Bio-Inspired Approaches” in Computer Science and Engineering. My research area is interdisciplinary in nature which combines ideas from machine learning, psychology, biology and sensor networks. I have developed solutions for the detection and removal of fraudulent nodes in sensor networks based on ideas borrowed from the above-mentioned fields.

I received my bachelor’s in Computer Science Engineering from College of Technology and Engineering in 2010 with Honors. Academically, I worked as Assistant Professor for computer science department with SS College of Engineering. Professionally, I have also worked as Design Executive with Phosphate India Private Limited, India.