About

Senior Research Scientist · Computer Science and Mathematics Division · Oak Ridge National Laboratory

I am a Senior Research Scientist in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division (CSMD) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee, USA. My research sits at the intersection of machine learning, privacy, and AI safety for scientific applications — spanning privacy-preserving machine learning, federated learning, differential privacy, and trustworthy AI.

Prior to joining ORNL in 2019, I was an international guest researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Maryland, USA. Before my PhD, I worked in software development for Nuance Communications (UK), Vivo (Brazil), T-Mobile (Macedonia), and Renault (France). I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia.

I am a Senior Member of IEEE, an Advisor to the IEEE USA Artificial Intelligence Policy Committee, and an Advisor to the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Government Activities Committee.

Research Focus

My work advances the theory and practice of privacy-preserving machine learning for distributed and federated scientific systems. Core research themes include:

• Federated learning — communication-efficient and privacy-preserving training across decentralized scientific data
• Differential privacy — formal guarantees for data release and model training in sensitive domains
• Trustworthy AI — robustness, explainability, and security of models under adversarial conditions
• AI for science — privacy-aware methods applied to energy, climate, and national security applications

Get in Touch

Open to collaborations, invited talks, and research partnerships.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Computer Science and Mathematics Division
P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
kotevskao@ornl.gov