Research areas: Graph Theory and Graph Algorithms, LLM-Guided Computational Exploration of Open Problems in Graph Algorithms, Applications of Computability, Technology of Elections in United States.
Summary: Dr. Bagga's is currently engaged in research (jointly with Dr. Adithya Kulkarni, Assistant Professor of Computer Science) that involves LLM guided investigations of various problems in graph algorithms. He also guides research projects of undergraduate and graduate students.
Recent research work with students:
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Mentored Ms. Ananya Sharma, CS Major, under the BSU Teacher-Scholar Program. Proposal Title: A Comparative Analysis of Election Systems and Technologies used in the US and India, with an Exploration of Future Innovations.
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Serving on a PhD thesis committee, Aaron Muehler, Biology, Thesis Description: Using big data to prevent aquatic invasive species (AIS) Spread.
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CS 499 Independent Study Research with undergraduate student Sinclair Nzenwata: Exploring Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and LaTeX, Acrobat, and Panorama Accessibility features and tools.
Current and recent research grants:
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Voting System Technical Oversight Program (VSTOP) Grant (Since 2006)
27, Indiana Secretary of State. This Program, co-directed by Dr. Bagga assists the Indiana Secretary of State with matters including Election Administration, Technology of Elections, Testing and Certification. More details are availabe at the bottom of the page.
Research area: Scientific Computing
Summary: Dr. Coy's research interests lie in the applications of computing to other realms of science to foster new discoveries through interdisciplinary collaborations. She is currently building computational models to aid in our understanding of the radioactive decay of Radon and possible implications for our understanding of dark matter in the solar system.
Recent research work with students:
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HONR 499, "Modeling the Yearly Variation of Radon-222 Decay Rates and Possible Implications for Dark Matter”, Elaine Ulsh, Spring 2026
Huseyin Ergin, Associate Professor
Recent research work with students:
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"Integrating Modeling to Increase Abstraction in the Code," In collaboration with Beulah Works, LLC (Valporaiso, Indiana), $49,828. (May 7, 2018 - May 6, 2019).
Research areas: Game Design & Development; Computer Science Education
Summary: Dr. Gestwicki's research explores the relationships between games, fun, and learning. He is especially interested in applications of agile software development techniques to game development. Dr. Gestwicki's work often involves creating games as well as mentoring student game development teams
Recent research work with students:
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Paul Gestwicki, Jeffrey Harmon, Samantha Shively, and Brooke Wright. Designing a game to teach about educational paths to STEM careers. In Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Meaningful Play, pages 29-41. Play Story Press, 2024.
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Paul Gestwicki, Jeffrey Harmon, Samantha Shively, and Brooke Wright. The STEM Career Paths Game. In Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Meaningful Play, pages 331-332. Play Story Press, 2024.
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Lyle Dotson, Andrew Everage-Scheible, Alexander Gestwicki, Jeffrey Harmon, and Paul Gestwicki. Behavior Tree Visualization in Godot Engine. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Game Design. In press.
Current and recent research grants:
Research area: Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Data Mining, and AI for Scientific Discovery.
Summary: Dr. Kulkarni's research focuses on developing reliable and intelligent AI systems that can support scientific discovery. His work combines large language models, graph-based reasoning, uncertainty estimation, and machine learning to improve AI reliability and enable new discoveries in mathematics and other scientific disciplines. He is particularly interested in understanding how AI can move beyond answering questions to generating and validating new scientific knowledge through interdisciplinary collaborations.
Recent research work with students:
Student co-authored publications:
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Brandon Dean and Adithya Kulkarni. "LLM-Assisted PDF-to-LaTeX Conversion for Academic Document Management." Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 41(7), 81–90, 2026.
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Odianose Anon, Yahaya Fofana, and Adithya Kulkarni. "Auditing Reported Confidence in Large Language Models: Demographic Sensitivity, Rerun Variability, and Response Stability." Intelligent Data Engineering and AI (IDEA 2026), accepted.
Teacher-Scholar and undergraduate research projects:
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CS 466 – New Trends in Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2026): High-Impact Undergraduate Research (HIUR) course in which students conducted original AI research, developed experiments, analyzed results, and prepared research papers for publication.
Current and recent research grants:
Research area: Computing education
Summary: Professor Largent's research interests lie at the various intersections of computer science, pedagogy, inclusivity, and small group development.
Recent research work with students:
Research area: Software Engineering, Requirements Engineering, Software Quality
Summary: Dr. Lin’s research has been focused on developing and applying rigorous specification and testing methodologies, grounded in mathematics and computer science theory, to help produce software-intensive systems of high quality cost-effectively. She is particularly interested in advancing rigorous methods for software quality in the age of AI, with a unifying focus on the correctness, reliability, and trustworthiness of software and intelligent systems.
Recent research work with students (* indicate student author):
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A. Bensch*, M. L. Hammel*, L. Lin, Augmenting black-box unit testing with crafted mockups and code coverage analysis, in: Proceedings of the 5th Interdisciplinary Conference on Electrics and Computer (INTCEC), Chicago, IL, 2025, 1-8.
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M. L. Hammel*, L. Lin, Just enough software engineering for domain scientists in research software development, in: Proceedings of the 4th Interdisciplinary Conference on Electrics and Computer (INTCEC), Chicago, IL, 2024, 1-11
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M. L. Hammel*, L. Lin, Assuring domain software quality through workflow testing and specification, in: Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), South San Francisco, CA, 2023, 37-44.
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L. T. Connelly*, M. L. Hammel*, L. Lin, Leveraging best industry practices to developing software for academic research, in: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Management Engineering, Software Engineering and Service Sciences (ICMSS), Wuhan, China, 2023, 7-13.
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L. T. Connelly*, M. L. Hammel*, B. T. Eger*, L. Lin, Automated unit testing of hydrologic modeling software with CI/CD and Jenkins, in: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), KSIR Virtual Conference Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 2022, 225-230.
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L. Hao*, X. Sun, L. Lin, Correctness argument for an SDN MAC learning algorithm, in: Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), KSIR Virtual Conference Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 2021, 51-56.
Current and recent research grants:
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Collaborative Research: Frameworks: Building a Collaboration Infrastructure: CyberWater2 - A Sustainable Data/Model Integration Framework (single PI at Ball State), $69,999.00, National Science Foundation (#2209834), 01/01/23 to 12/31/26.
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Framework: Software: Collaborative Research: CyberWater - An Open and Sustainable Framework for Diverse Data and Model Integration with Provenance and Access to HPC (single PI at Ball State), $39,996.00, National Science Foundation (#1835602), 01/01/19 to 12/31/22.
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"Software Science: How Far Could Mathematics and Rigor Take Us?," In collaboration with Air Force Research Laboratory, $38,826. (May 14, 2018 - June 15, 2019).
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"Quantifying Software Quality through Rigorous Testing and Test Automation: From Theory to Practice," In collaboration with Ontario Systems (Muncie, Indiana), $30,000. (November 1, 2016 - October 31, 2017).
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"Towards Scalable Modeling for Rigorous Software Specification and Testing," In collaboration with Rockwell Collins, Air Force Research Laboratory, and Ontario Systems (Muncie, Indiana), $50,000. (November 1, 2014 - October 30, 2015).
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"Combining rigorous specification and testing methodologies to achieve high quality assurance," In collaboration with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, $46,836. (January 2013 - December 2013).
Research area: Requirements Engineering
Summary: Dr. Malviya's research interests lie in supporting the process of Requirement Engineering, a core area of Software Engineering.
Recent research work with students:
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Reilly, Ashelyn, and Malviya, Sugandha, "Using Game Design Domain to Teach Software Specification" In October 2026, The Journal of Computing Sciences in College, Volume 42, pp. 70-81. ACM Digital Library.
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Malviya, Sugandha, André Fonteles, Angeles Marin Batana, and Alec Burch-DeWitt. "Recommending Security Requirements through Asset Identification and Threat Mapping." In 2025 IEEE 33rd International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), pp. 552-560. IEEE, 2025.
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Undergraduate students Alec Burch-DeWitt, Tierra Williams, and Angeles Marin Batana presented a research poster titled "AI-Driven Security Requirements" at the Spring 2025 Computer Science Banquet, Ball State University.
Current and recent research grants:
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Indiana Space Grant Consortium (INSGC), 2026–2027: A Game-Based Platform for Biodiversity Exploration. Collaborative research project with Dr. Travis Faas, focused on developing an educational game-based platform to engage students in biodiversity exploration and promote STEM learning. Award amount: $7,740.
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Ball State University Summer Assessment Grants (Summers 2024, 2025, and 2026): Awarded $1,500 for each summer ($4,500 total) to conduct collaborative research with Prof. David Largent and Dr. Rebecca Pierce on student retention and academic progression in Computer Science Department.
Research area: Computer networks
Summary: The overarching goal of Dr. Sun's research is to create scientific methods and software tools for managing and securing large, complex computer networks. His current research focuses on developing quantitative models to measure network complexity and investigating the use of artificial intelligence to manage that complexity.
Recent research work with students (* indicate student author):
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URCA 290 (Teacher-Scholar Program), "Exploring the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Network Management", Pengyu Lu, Fall 2026
Voting Systems Technical Oversight Project (VSTOP)
VSTOP is funded by the Indiana Secretary of State's Office to oversee voting machine technology and deployment across the state of Indiana. They help ensure that voting machines used comply with Indiana laws and that counties receive the needed technical information to operate them properly. VSTOP works directly both with the Secretary of State and the Indiana Election Commission.
VSTOP is co-directed by Jay Bagga of the Department of Computer Science and Bryan Byers of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. VSTOP is housed in the Bowen Center for Public Affairs which is affiliated with the Department of Political Science. For more information, see the VSTOP page on the Bowen Center's website.
External Funding (> $3 million)
Bagga, Kunwarjay S., Byers, Bryan D., Taylor, Charles David, "Voting System Technical Oversight Program," Sponsored by Indiana Secretary of State, $1,190,000. (July 1, 2017 - June 30, 2019).
Bagga, Jay S (Co-Principal), Losco, Joe (Principal), "Voting Systems Technical Oversight Program," Sponsored by Indiana Secretary of State, $1,190,000. (July 1, 2015 - June 30, 2017).
Bagga, Kunwarjay S. (Co-Principal), "Voting Systems Technical Oversight Program," Sponsored by State of Indiana, $500,000. (July 2013 - June 2015).
Bagga, Kunwarjay S. (Co-Principal), "Pre-election Logic and Accuracy Testing & Post Election Audit Initiative," Sponsored by U. S. Election Assistance Commission, $143,074. (January 2012 - April 2013).