Rate My Professor Maria Valero de Clemente

Dr. Maria Valero de Clemente serves as Associate Chair for Research and Associate Professor of Information Technology in the College of Computing and Software Engineering at Kennesaw State University, where she also coordinates the MS-CYBR program. She directs the IoT as a Service Research Group and has been a faculty member for five years. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Georgia (2019), an M.S. in Computer Science from Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela (2009), and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Universidad del Tachira, Venezuela. Dr. Valero's research specializations encompass Internet of Things (IoT) for smart healthcare, cybersecurity, distributed computing, signal processing, wireless sensor networks, cyber-physical systems, artificial intelligence, and machine learning applications in healthcare and security. She emphasizes non-invasive methods and has led projects like GlucoCheck, a needle-free glucose monitoring device using light absorption for diabetes care, involving numerous undergraduate students.

Dr. Valero has made significant contributions through key publications such as 'Internet of Things for current COVID-19 and future pandemics: An exploratory study' (2020, Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research), 'Malware detection and prevention using artificial intelligence techniques' (2021, IEEE International Conference on Big Data), 'Smart seismic sensing for indoor fall detection, location, and notification' (2019, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics), 'Bayesian hyperparameter optimization for deep neural network-based network intrusion detection' (2021, IEEE Big Data), and 'Machine learning research towards combating COVID-19: Virus detection, spread prevention, and medical assistance' (2021, Journal of Biomedical Informatics). These works have garnered substantial citations, reflecting her impact in IoT healthcare and cybersecurity fields. She has mentored over 50 undergraduate students, fostering their research in student-driven projects. Her honors include the 2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year from KSU's Office of Undergraduate Research and the 2023 CCSE Faculty Award for Outstanding Early Career.