Shakil A. Rafi, Ph.D.
I’m a Teaching Assistant Professor of Data Science at the University of Arkansas, where I teach machine learning and applied AI.
I came to data science through mathematics. My Ph.D. is in applied math, and my dissertation looked at how neural networks approximate solutions to the heat equation: how many parameters they need, how deep they have to be, and how accurate they can get. That habit of asking why a method works still shapes how I build things and how I teach.
After my Ph.D. I spent a year as a postdoc in computational biology, building machine learning models on bacterial genomes. Before that I did health data science at Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and taught in the Walton College of Business. Long before any of that, I co-founded a small web development company in Dhaka.
These days most of my time goes to students. I want them to leave my classes as effective, hard-working, and above all ethical data workers. I also work with industry partners like Mastercard, Walmart, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, and Arvest Bank so students get to work on real problems with real data.
What I’m working on
- Teaching generative and agentic AI: RAG systems, local LLMs, orchestration, and monitoring.
- Building industry partnerships that turn into datasets, guest lectures, and practicum projects for students.
- An LLM-assisted study of how researchers around the world talk about AI in education, with collaborators at Johns Hopkins.
- Keeping up nnR, my R package for doing algebra on neural networks.
Get in touch
The best way to reach me is email at sarafi@uark.edu. If you’re on campus, you can also drop by my office in Bell Engineering. I’m happy to talk about research, teaching, collaborations, or a data problem that doesn’t fit neatly anywhere.
Based
Fayetteville, Arkansas
ORCID
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