Divija Swetha Gadiraju

Dr. Divija Gadiraju is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Mahindra University, Hyderabad. Previously, she served as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Nebraska Omaha, USA, where she taught undergraduate and graduate courses, mentored students, and conducted collaborative research. She earned her Ph.D. from the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad in 2023, after completing an M.S. by Research at the same institution. As a SERB Overseas Doctoral Visiting Fellow, she conducted research at Purdue University, USA, and she received the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship in 2019. Her research spans blockchain systems, deep reinforcement learning, multi-agent decision-making, and the use of artificial intelligence for verifiable and trustworthy systems. Her work has included blockchain scalability, autonomous UAV control, and structural health monitoring. At Mahindra University, she is leading an internally funded research project, “Adaptive, Human-Aligned and Verifiable Agentic AI.” She actively supervises student research projects.

• 07/2018 – 09/2023: Ph.D., International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H), India
• 08/2015 – 07/2018: M.S. by Research, International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H), India
• 2011 – 2015: B.E., Andhra University, India

Selected journal articles

• Divija S. G. and Deepak K., “Blockchain-Driven Framework for DRL-Controlled UAV Bridge Health Monitoring,” IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2025.
• Divija S. G., Saeed Y., and Deepak K., “SHM-Traffic: DRL and Transfer Learning based UAV Control for Structural Health Monitoring of Bridges with Traffic,” IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 6166–6179, 2025. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3526193.
• Divija S. G., Ryan M., Saeed Y., and Deepak K., “BIONIB: Blockchain-based IoT using Novelty Index in Bridge Health Monitoring,” Applied Sciences, 2025.
• Divija S. G., V. Aggarwal, “Prism Blockchain Enabled Internet of Things with Deep Reinforcement Learning,” Blockchain: Research and Applications, article 100205, 2024.
• Divija S. G., Prasenjit K., Vedant P., Vijay S., and V. Aggarwal, “GLIDE: Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning for Coordinated UAV Control in Dynamic Military Environments,” Information, vol. 15, no. 8, article 477, 2024. doi: 10.3390/info15080477.
• Divija S. G., V. Lalitha, and V. Aggarwal, “An Optimization Framework based on Deep Reinforcement Learning Approaches for Prism Blockchain,” IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, 2023. doi: 10.1109/TSC.2023.3242606.

Selected conference papers

• Divija S. G. and Deepak K., “Integrating AI Governance and Blockchain Execution: A Secure Framework for Enterprise Incentive Systems,” 32nd Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), 2026.
• Divija S. G. and Deepak K., “Multi-Sensor Enhanced UAV Bridge Survey With Dynamic Trajectory Planning and Resource Optimization,” 2024 IEEE 15th Annual Information Technology, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference (IEMCON), 2024.
• Divija S. G. and Deepak K., “Enhancing Supply Chains with Blockchain-Driven Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Inventory Management Taxonomy and Comparative Analysis,” 30th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), 2024.
• Divija S. G., Surya R. M., and Deepak K., “A Deep Reinforcement Learning based Approach for Bridge Health Maintenance,” International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), 2023. 5. Divija S. G., V. Lalitha, and V. Aggarwal, “Secure Regenerating Codes for Reducing Storage and Bootstrap Costs in Sharded Block Chains,” Blockchain’20, 2020.

• 07/2026 – Present: Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Mahindra University, India.
• 08/2024 – 07/2026: Visiting Assistant Professor (Research and Teaching), University of Nebraska Omaha, USA.
• 01/2023 – 05/2025: Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Nebraska Omaha, USA.
• 07/2021 – 12/2022: Visiting Scholar (SERB Overseas Doctoral Visiting Fellowship), Purdue University, USA.
• 08/2018 – 07/2021: Ph.D. Research Scholar, IIIT Hyderabad, India.
• 07/2015 – 08/2018: Research Scholar, IIIT Hyderabad, India.

Her research investigates blockchain and distributed systems, deep reinforcement learning, multi-agent learning, and AI governance. Earlier work developed deep reinforcement learning methods for improving Prism blockchain performance. Her applied research includes autonomous UAV coordination, sensor-based structural health monitoring of bridges, blockchain-enabled IoT, and reinforcement learning for supply-chain management. Her current focus is on human-aligned and verifiable agentic AI, including trustworthy AI decision-making and blockchain-backed accountability for autonomous systems. She received ₹6 lakh in internal research funding from Mahindra University in September 2026 for “Adaptive, Human-Aligned and Verifiable Agentic AI.” Her research also examines the integration of AI governance with blockchain-based execution in enterprise applications.