(Istiak) Hossain Shihab

About Me

I am a graduate student in Computer Science at Oregon State University, where I serve as a graduate teaching assistant helping over 1,000 students with Operating Systems and Analysis of Algorithms courses. Currently, I conduct research under Professor Dr. Christopher Hundhausen, investigating how students leverage and interpret AI assistance while working with legacy codebase. My research focuses on understanding human-AI interaction and making AI systems more interpretable and accessible. Looking ahead, I aim to develop frameworks that bridge the gap between human understanding and AI systems, with particular emphasis on studying how users develop mental models of AI capabilities and building socially responsible AI systems that prioritize safety and accessibility.

My background encompasses:

• Research Experience: Leading projects in machine learning with focus on:
  • Natural language processing and LLM interpretability
  • Speech recognition and out-of-distribution learning
  • Document layout analysis and computer vision
• Industry Experience:
  • Backend development and conducting RnD for machine learning application at bKash Ltd. (50M+ customer base)
  • Software engineering for high-traffic financial systems
  • Android development for accounting platforms
• Publications: Peer-reviewed papers in ICDAR, Interspeech, CVPR Workshops, KDD Workshop, FLAIRS, and Briefings in Bioinformatics

I actively contribute to the research community through organizing and participating in competitions. Notable achievements include:

• Secured $53,000 Google-sponsored Kaggle competition for Bengali Speech Recognition
• Placement in AI City Challenge at CVPR 2022
• Led data collection and modeling efforts for multiple Bengali.AI projects
• Organized research competitions including DL Sprint and BDOSN NLP Hackathon

News

• [Mar. 2024] Learned Swimming and Archery!
• [Sept. 2023] Started pursuing a fully funded Ph.D. in Computer Science at Oregon State University, with an integrated M.Sc. program.
• [Aug. 2023] Launched DL Sprint 2.0 at BUET on BaDLAD Dataset.
• [Jul. 2023] Received 53,000 USD grant from Google to launch Speech Recognition Competition at Kaggle.
• [Jul. 2023] Our presentation for BaDLAD at ICDAR 2023 went live.
• [Apr. 2023] Formed and started working at Advanced Research Team at bKash Ltd to instantiate internal novel researches.

While my academic journey has led me deep into AI research and human-computer interaction, I still maintain my early passion for gaming that first drew me to computer science. I enjoy unwinding with my Steam Deck between research sessions, finding that these brief gaming breaks help maintain creativity and perspective in my academic work. Currently I am playing Elden Ring, and it’s probably one of my most favorite game ever!

Publications