Rate My Professor Dragutin Petkovic

Dragutin Petkovic is a Professor of Computer Science at San Francisco State University since 2003, serving as Department Chair from 2003 to 2015, Associate Chair from 2015 to 2020, and currently as Coordinator for Graduate Certificates in AI Ethics and Software Engineering. He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 1983, focusing on biomedical image analysis, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and multidisciplinary studies, respectively, from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, emphasizing image and signal analysis. Prior to academia, he held senior industry positions: Senior Director of Applications at VMware (2001-2002), Senior Director/VP of Software at Dotcast (2000-2001), and at IBM Almaden Research Center as Senior Manager (1987-2000) and Researcher (1983-1987), where he founded the pioneering Query by Image Content (QBIC) project in content-based retrieval.

Petkovic founded and directed the SFSU Center for Computing for Life Sciences from 2005 to 2018, collaborating on multiple NIH grants with Stanford University in AI for bioinformatics, and co-founded the multidisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Ethical Artificial Intelligence in 2019. An IEEE Life Fellow since 2018 and IEEE Fellow since 1998 for leadership in content-based retrieval and the QBIC project, he received IBM Research Awards and the Blue Chip Award from IBM CEO Lou Gerstner, holds 14 U.S. patents, and has over 70 peer-reviewed publications. Key works include 'It is Not "Accuracy vs. Explainability"—We Need Both for Trustworthy AI Systems' (IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, 2023), editorship of Explainable Deep Learning AI: Methods and Challenges (Elsevier, 2023), 'Query by Image and Video Content: The QBIC System' (IEEE Computer, 1995), and 'QBIC project: querying images by content, using color, texture, and shape' (SPIE, 1993). His research focuses on AI ethics, trustworthiness and explainability, machine learning, software engineering, usability, and computing for life sciences. He delivered a keynote at IEEE CCWC 2025 on 'GenAI and Education'.