Summary
Arash “Archer” Barfar is an Associate Professor of Information Systems and Director of the PhD Program.
Archer’s work in academia is guided by a singular principle voiced by Marcus Aurelius: "Whatever I do, either by myself or with another, should focus solely on that which is useful and well suited to society." Grounded in this ideal, his research focuses on how AI can be harnessed to advance social good—or restrained to prevent societal harm. His work has appeared in leading journals including Decision Support Systems (twice), Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Information Processing & Management, Expert Systems with Applications (twice), Computers in Human Behavior, and Big Data (twice).
Archer has designed and delivered advanced coursework at the graduate and doctoral levels in machine learning, predictive analytics, and data-driven decision-making. He holds a PhD in Information Systems from the University of South Florida.
Selected recent publication
- Barfar, Arash, and Lee Sommerfeldt. “Propaganda by Prompt: Tracing Hidden Linguistic Strategies in Large Language Models.” Information Processing & Management, 63(2), 104403 (2026).
Awards
- 2025 – Graduate Faculty of the Year (Online Business Analytics Program)
- 2024 – Faculty of the Year (Information Systems)
- 2023 – Graduate Faculty of the Year (Information Systems)
- 2020 – Graduate Faculty of the Year (Information Systems)
- 2017 – College of Business Faculty of the Year
- 2017 – Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
- 2017 – Graduate Faculty of the Year (Information Systems)
- 2015 – Students’ List of Instructors with the Greatest Impact (University of South Florida)