Departments: Computer Science, Integrated Science and Technology (ISAT) 

Areas of expertise:

• Artificial intelligence: governance, policy, and societal impacts
• Machine learning and natural language processing
• Computational modeling and social simulation
• Cognitive science of religion and new religious movements
• Leadership, social identity, and dynamics of social change movements

Afzal Upal is associate dean of the College of Integrated Science and Engineering. Before joining JMU, he chaired computer science departments for six years and spent 10 years as leader of the Information, Influence & Effects Group at Defence Research & Development Canada.

His research bridges artificial intelligence, computational modeling and cognitive science. His recent work includes applying machine-learning techniques to understand why some social media messages go viral. He was an early pioneer in applying computational methods to the study of religious movements, particularly Islamic new religious movements. His research uses computational modeling and simulation to investigate how leaders shape shared beliefs, create social identities and build new social and religious movements.

Upal is the author of Moderate Fundamentalists: Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at in the Lens of Cognitive Science of Religion and co-editor of Brill Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements. He has published 100 scholarly articles spanning artificial intelligence, cognitive science and the cognitive science of religion.

Upal holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics from the University of the Punjab and in computer science from the University of Saskatchewan, where he also earned his master's degree. He received his doctorate in computer science from the University of Alberta, developing a novel machine-learning algorithm for his doctoral thesis.

Media contact: Eric Gorton, gortonej@jmu.edu, 540-908-1760.